A Deadly Desire
by Hannah554
Summary: When bodies start piling up and suspects are scarce the team may have one of their hardest cases so far on their hands and the worst is yet to come. Flack/Angell, Danny/Lindsay and a little Mac/Stella.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note – This is my first CSI New York fic so you may have to bear with my while I get a feel for it. I aim to update pretty regularly but RL has a habit of keeping me busy, pesky thing. Just a little warning, there are small mentions of sexual assualt in the fic but it is only mentions of it. I hope you enjoy the fic and feedback is loved and appreciated. **

**A Deadly Desire**

**Chapter 1**

Don had barely made it through his shower that morning before he'd gotten a call from Captain Wentworth. A dead body had been dumped in an alleyway and since he was supposed to be starting work an hour later the good Captain took it upon himself to ruin breakfast and call Don in. Wentworth was new and so far he wasn't doing a good job of impressing Don. He'd had to grab some toast on his way out of the apartment and eat it en route, he wasn't happy about it. He got out of the car, stepping under the crime scene tape and into the alleyway. Danny and Hawkes were both knelt down by the body of a young woman. She'd been pretty, blonde hair and blue eyes that were now staring at him lifelessly. She was naked, wrapped in nothing but a white sheet stained with blood and covered in bruises.

"What have we got?" he asked catching both men's attention.

"Female vic, probably around 18 years old," Danny stated glancing up at Don only briefly. He knew Danny had worked late last night to close his last case; both he and Stella had still been going through files when he'd left for his date with Jess. He looked exhausted now.

"Exactly how late did you work last night Danny?"

"I got home about six hours ago," Danny told him "But Gregors is behind bars and shouldn't be getting out for at least twenty years. It was worth it."

"Looks like she took a pretty nasty beating, cause of death is probably the cut throat," Hawkes stated as he examined the body. "She's in a pretty advanced stage of rigor; I'd say death occurred last night, some time between 10 and midnight."

"Sexual assault?" Don asked and Hawkes nodded grimly.

"Looks like it but that'll be up to Sid to confirm."

"Who found the body?" Don questioned.

"Restaurant owner, he was expecting a delivery this morning, opened the back door and found our vic," Danny told him nodding his head toward the open door a few feet further down the alley. "Jess is already talking to him."

"Where is she?" Don questioned wondering briefly how he hadn't noticed her on the way in and how the hell she got to crime scene's so fast. She'd only left his place an hour ago to pick up some things from home before heading into work. Hawkes pointed back out of the alley "Find anything useful here?"

"Not so far," Hawkes told her. "It looks like whoever did this might have washed the body before they dumped her here."

"So this is definitely not the primary crime scene?" Don asked.

"No blood anywhere but on the vic and the sheets, no signs of a struggle and there's cuts around her wrist, she was probably tied up and for some time," Hawkes explained and Don nodded.

"Alright, if you guys don't need me down here I'll go canvass the neighbourhood, see if anyone saw anything," Don told them turning to leave the alley and spotting Jess across the street talking to a man he assumed was the restaurant owner. He walked over to them coming to a stop beside Jess.

"I've never seen her before, I have no idea who she is or what she'd be doing behind my restaurant," the man was saying and Jess nodded her head.

"Have you seen anything suspicious in the last few days, anything out of the ordinary?" she asked.

"Nothing, I run a good business, there's no reason for that girl to be dumped anywhere near my property," the restaurant owner stated obviously getting annoyed. He kept running a hand through his hair, glancing around him as though he was expecting someone to jump out at him. Don had learnt pretty quickly in his career not to just put it up to the shock of finding a body.

"Alright thank you Mr Sandal. You have my card, if you remember anything else, please call," Jess said politely and then turned to leave with Don.

"I take it you didn't get anything useful," he said and she shook her head with a sigh.

"He's never seen her before; he only got here a few minutes before finding the body and didn't see anything suspicious."

"Danny and Hawkes are still checking the scene but so far they're coming up empty. Hawkes is estimating TOD to be late last night, between 10 and midnight. The restaurant would still have been open then," Don said thinking out loud and Jess glanced at the building. "We should talk to anyone who was working last night."

"I'll get their names," Jess said looking over at the apprehensive restaurant owner.

"I'm gonna go knock on some doors, maybe someone else saw something," he told her. He stared at her for a moment, narrowing his eyes. "How'd you get here so fast?"

As usual she didn't answer the question just smiled and walked away. "I'll go see if I can find out who our girl is."

* * *

It had taken him at least a good few hours of knocking on doors, waking people up and interrupting morning routines to learn that no one had seen anything. It had still been early and most people had been unaware that a body had been found near their homes. It was with a heavy and long suffering sigh that he dropped himself into his chair at his desk. He was still working on nothing but the toast he'd had on his way out of the apartment that morning and his stomach was being very vocal about its unhappiness.

He'd had a text from Danny on his way back to the precinct, they'd found nothing useful at the crime scene other than the white sheet the vic had been wrapped in which they'd taken back to the lab. They'd taken a few other bits and pieces too but wouldn't be surprised if it had nothing to do with the case, it hadn't exactly been the cleanest of alleyways and most of it had probably been there long before the body. Poor Lindsay had been dragged into dumpster diving to check for a murder weapon or anything that might give them a clue as to what happened. Even after being in the city for years now the poor girl still got some of the worst tasks on offer.

A cup of coffee and brown paper bag was placed down in front of him interrupting his thoughts and the smell was a heavenly reminder of one of the things he loved most in life. He looked up as Jess leaned back on the edge of the desk and decided his day was getting better.

"I was passing the coffee shop down the street," she told him and he thanked her as he opened up the paper bag and pulled out the still warm bagel. "We got an ID on our vic, turns out she's in the system," she continued handing him a file. "Amy Greenwood, 17 years old, she was busted a couple of times for soliciting."

"She's a prostitute?" Flack questioned scanning through what little information was in the file.

"Looks that way," she replied.

"So maybe a client didn't feel he was getting his money's worth," Don suggested. He wasn't one to jump to conclusions but throwing theories out there never hurt.

"Maybe," she shrugged. "I was about to go inform her family."

"I'll come with you," he told her standing up and grabbing his coffee and bagel to follow her. "I got squat from canvass, no one saw a thing."

The drive was quiet, Jess drove while Don was content to eat his bagel and drink his coffee finishing them just in time to arrive at the apartment building Amy Greenwood's father lived in. It was a run down building, Don was sure he saw a rat run passed him but decided it would be best not to turn around and find out. Jess knocked on the door of the third floor apartment and immediately there was movement inside, shuffling, footsteps and what sounded like glass bottles clinging together. The door opened, a man his forties, light brown hair and blue eyes stood there rubbing sleep from his eyes and looking like he'd spent a night and possible a morning out on the town.

"Malcolm Greenwood?" Jess questioned and the man narrowed his eyes, giving her the once over before looking at Don.

"Yeah," he replied, his voice gruff.

"I'm Detective Angell, this is Detective Flack with NYPD, may we come in?" she questioned and after looking at them both warily for several moments he stepped back and allowed them through the door.

The apartment was a mess, as Don had expected it was covered in empty beer bottles and take out boxes. There air was stale and Don decided he was going to refrain from touching anything especially when he saw a bug crawl out of a mug on the floor near the couch. Jess it seemed had come to a similar decision, she didn't move further from the door than she had to but it wasn't like she could hover in it to make a quick get away when she was here to tell him his daughter was dead.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this but your daughter Amy was found murdered this morning," Jess stated and Don was surprised at the lack of emotion he detected from the older man.

"I always figured if she turned up again it would be dead," Greenwood said as he grabbed another beer bottle from the fridge. "She was always getting herself into trouble, could never learn what was good for her."

"When was the last time you spoke to your daughter?" Don questioned, he had a feeling he knew the answer.

"I don't know, about two years ago, one morning she went off to school, didn't come back," Greenwood told them.

"You never contacted the authorities, filed a missing person report?" Jess asked and he shook his head.

"The school called a couple of times asking where she was but I told them she'd gone to stay with her mother. They can't have been that concerned, I'm sure they had a file somewhere that told 'em her mother was dead but I never did hear from them again," he explained and Don bit back any response he might have had.

"Why would you lie to the school?" Jess questioned and got a non committal shrug in response.

"Look, if she wanted to be stupid and run off then that was her business, I didn't need you cops hassling me about it," he stated drinking his beer and obviously getting agitated by their intrusion.

"Do you know of anyone that would want to harm your daughter?" Don asked.

"Like I said, hadn't seen or heard from her in two years, wouldn't know anything," Greenwood replied and Don glanced at Jess, they both knew they were getting no where here.

"If you think of anything, please call and I'm sorry for your loss," Jess said, the last part more out o habit than anything else, as she Don headed for the door. They left the apartment and Don felt a great relief as he stepped out into the New York air, he suddenly felt like he needed to take a shower.

"That was almost a waste of time," he said as he got into the car, this time taking the driver's seat without even thinking about it.

"We know she ran away from home, and we have a fair idea of why," Jess stated getting into the car next to him. He gave her a look and started the car, hopefully Danny and the others had something because so far they were turning up nothing.

* * *

"We got nothing from the sheet, the blood belonged to the vic, Lindsay came back with a whole lot of trash and found nothing useful in any of it," Danny explained. The lack of evidence in this case was already annoying him and the case had barely begun. "I was about to go down to autopsy to see if Sid found anything."

"No need, I just came from there," Hawkes stated as he joined Danny and Don in the hallway. "He hasn't done the autopsy yet, apparently Mac and Stella's case took precedence, and they've got more than one victim, he was just getting started on Amy Greenwood. There was nothing on the body though, it had been washed and I mean thoroughly, other than muck and grime from the alleyway there was nothing, no trace, no blood, nothing."

"No blood?" Don questioned. "The sheet she was wrapped in was covered in it."

"Maybe she was on the sheet when she was killed, the killer washed her off to get rid of any evidence that could lead back to him and then wrapped her up in the sheet to dump her," Danny suggested. "But other than blood the sheet was clean."

"What about murder weapon?" Don questioned.

"We're still working on that but we're definitely looking at some sort of blade. The cut throat was the ultimate cause of death but there's a good chance one of the two stab wounds would have done the job anyway," Hawkes explained and Don nodded his head slowly, frustration obvious on his face.

"Well, we've got no witnesses so far, other than the restaurant owner that found the body, Jess and Lindsay have gone to talk to him again, I'm sure he knows more than he's saying," Don told them as he left the room.

* * *

The restaurant was nice, Jess hadn't seen it earlier but under different circumstances she might have considered convincing Don to come here with her. She asked one of the waiters where the owner was and he hurriedly pointed her to the kitchen in the back before running off to serve a table. She and Lindsay dodged the rushed staff through to the kitchen which seemed even busier than the front had been but that might have been because it was a smaller space people were rushing around in.

"You'd think a murder victim being found in the alley would be bad for business," Lindsay stated quietly as they spotted Gregory Sandal amongst the cooks.

"Not in New York," Jess replied the two of them making their way over. "Mr Sandal."

Sandal looked up at hearing his name, his eyes finding hers and a look of annoyance crossing his features as they reached him.

"What do you want now, I already told you everything I know," he said turning his head to shout at a waiter that had picked up an order before it was ready to be taken. "This is a really bad time, can't this wait until after closing."

"I'm here investigating a homicide," Jess stated simply. "No, it can't wait."

He didn't look happy about it but he relented. "Alright but not in here." He led them out of the back door into the alley where the body had been found and for a moment his eyes landed on where the girl had been. He tore his gaze away and turned back to them. "Alright, what do want?"

"I want to go over what you know," she told him not flat out accusing him of lying earlier but she had the distinct impression that he had been.

"I already told you, I don't know anything, I don't know the girl, I don't know why she'd be left behind my restaurant and I didn't see anything other than her body lying there," he stated running a hand through his hair.

"Are you sure about that Mr Sandal?" Jess questioned and he gave her a look of outrage that she'd even consider him being a liar. She cut him off before he could start spouting protests and declarations of innocence. "Because if you're lying to me or have been withholding information that's obstruction of justice and interfering with a criminal investigation, that's a crime."

"Alright," Sandal said looking slightly panicked now. "I know who the girl is, her name is Amy, she's a prostitute, I... was with her a few times. I didn't want to say anything before because I was afraid it would make me a suspect and...I don't want my wife to find out."

"Can you tell us where she worked, where you picked her up?" Lindsay questioned.

"It wasn't like that; I didn't just drive down the street until I found someone. I met with a man, her pimp, he set it up," Sandal informed them. "His name was Ramiro; I don't know his last name. That's all I know I swear, I have no idea why someone would leave her body behind my restaurant, I paid Ramiro upfront, treated Amy right..."

"You can go, before I change my mind," Jess stated and watched as Sandal all but ran back into the restaurant. She turned to Lindsay who sighed and followed Jess out of the alley and back to the car.

"A first name isn't a lot to go on," she stated. "That's if it's even a real name."

"It's more than we had when we came here," Jess replied. "We could ask around, see if anyone knows that name,"

"Know any good spots for finding pimps?" Lindsay questioned humorously.

"A few too many."

* * *

_She pulled at the ropes tying her wrists to the bed but all it succeeded in doing was cutting more into her wrists. There was no slack, barely enough to move her wrists at all. She was cold but given that she was wearing only her waitress uniform she wasn't surprised. Her jacket was gone, probably taken while she was unconscious and she couldn't even guess what had happened to her handbag. She had given up screaming for help hours ago but she needed to find a way out of here. She needed to get back to Thomas, she should have been home hours ago, hopefully someone had called the police, hopefully someone was looking for her. _

_She heard footsteps outside the door and she knew he was coming back. The bruises he'd already left on her suddenly started hurting more as though they sensed his presence, knew that there was more pain to come. She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't beg, she'd already given him that satisfaction and she wasn't going to give him anymore._

_The door opened..._

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors Note: Sorry it took me a while to get this chapter up. I gave up on my beta (you know who you are) a while ago so all mistakes are mine and I apologise for any that have crept through, I'm kinda tired. Thanks to Steph, lily moonlight and aforzenheart412 for the reviews. **

**Chapter 2**

Don once again found himself at work early but this time it was more by choice than force. Danny and Lindsay were both already there as well, the two of them were in their shared office talking and Don knocked as he went in. The greeting he got wasn't an enthusiastic one but given that they'd all been working until late last night without finding a single lead it wasn't surprising. Jess had still been working on finding the pimp when he had finally headed home with assurances from her that if she didn't turn something up soon she'd call it a night.

"Either of you heard from Jess this morning?" Don asked and they both shook their heads.

"But we're about to," Lindsay said nodding toward the door and Don turned seeing Jess heading their way.

"So I finally got a lead on Ramiro," Jess announced, the victory in her voice overshadowed by tiredness and Don felt guilty once again for going home last night. "I checked Amy's arrest record; five out of the six times she was arrested were in the same place so I headed down there and started asking questions. The girls were less than forthcoming until I threatened to arrest them on the spot and leave them in a cell over night."

"I'll bet you fit right in Angell, have fun did you?" Danny questioned with a grin that disappeared when Lindsay elbowed him in the ribs.

"Don't knock it Messer, I got some good offers there," Jess replied and Don was glad he kept his outward reaction to that down to just a stiffening of his posture and a flash of annoyance on his face. He'd never been particularly possessive but then again he'd never been a lot of things before he'd met Jess. "Ramiro Craven, he's got a rap sheet a mile long," she finished handing them a file.

"Did you get home last night?" Don questioned as he let Danny and Lindsay look through the file.

"Yeah, I went home after I got the name and came in early this morning to follow it up," she told him and then continued when he kept looking at her. "I got a few hours sleep."

"This guy looks like a real piece of work," Danny said as he continued to look through the file with a frown.

"At least we've got a current address on him," Lindsay pointed out.

"I was just about to go talk to him," Jess nodded.

"Let's go then," Don stated as he stood up straight and headed for the door. He heard Jess say something to Danny and Lindsay but didn't quite catch what it was since he was already heading down the corridor. Jess caught up with him by the elevator and Don looked at her as the doors closed and they waited for it to reach the bottom floor. She looked tired and he knew the few hours of sleep she claimed to have had weren't restful. "You eaten yet?"

"I grabbed a snickers from the vending machine," she told him with a smile and he raised an eyebrow at her.

"I don't think that counts as breakfast," he stated and she shrugged.

"It was that or MnM's," she replied and he shook his head.

"We'll grab breakfast after we talk to Craven," he told her and cut her off when he could see she was about to protest. "I'm hungry, I want to eat, I'm being completely selfish here," he continued and she smiled and shook her head as she stepped out of the elevator. They made the drive to Craven's last known address and weren't surprised to see a group of barely dressed women in the corridor outside his apartment. They knocked on the door; waiting the few seconds it took for another half dressed woman to answer it.

"Detectives Flack and Angell, NYPD," Don introduced and the woman, girl really since she' couldn't be older than 18 smiled at him, giving him the once over.

"What can I do for you, Detective," the seductive tone did not go unnoticed. He didn't need to bother glancing to his left to know that Jess was probably trying not to roll her eyes, not that it would matter if she did, the girl didn't seem to have noticed her.

"We're looking for Ramiro Craven," Don stated and the girl gave him a half smile before stepping back to let them into the apartment. "Then I suppose I'd better go get him for you."

She disappeared from the living room and Don looked around at the girl's who almost seemed to be part of the furnishing and he wondered how many of them were just young teenage runaways like Amy had been. Some of them were ignoring the police presence, others were whispering quietly to each other and the rest were... giving Don rather interesting looks that Jess would probably make him pay for later.

"Detectives," Craven greeted as he entered the room with the girl that had answered the door behind him. He was a good looking guy, softer in appearance than his mug shot suggested and Don could imagine him using it to his advantage, using charm and looks to get girl's to trust him. "Emily here tells me you want to see me. I can assure you now all these lovely ladies are here of their own free will and nothing illegal is going on here."

Don feigned confusion and looked at Jess. "Did I miss the memo where prostitution became legal?" he questioned and she shrugged.

"There is no prostitution going on here and I resent the implication," Craven stated indignantly.

"Yeah sure, look we're not here to bust your little... business here," Don stated and Craven narrowed his eyes at them in both curiosity and wariness.

"We're here about a murder," Jess stated "Amy Greenwood's body was found in an alleyway this morning."

"Amy's dead?" the girl by his side, Emily, questioned.

"I was wondering where she was, she didn't check in the other day after she finished up with her client," Craven stated. "What happened to her?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," Jess replied and Craven's eyes widened.

"You don't think I had anything to do with this?" he asked. "I'm running a business here, why would I kill one of my girl's."

"Maybe she did a little business on the side, wasn't cutting you in," Don suggested and Craven shook his head.

"She knew better than that, she's been working for me for the last couple of years. When I found her she was living behind a dumpster, I gave her a job and a roof over her head, I gave her a chance," Craven stated as though he'd done some great civil service by turning a young girl into a prostitute.

"Yeah, I'm sure she was real grateful," Jess said sarcastically.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Don questioned deciding to go for a different tactic; this one was getting them no where.

"Sunday afternoon, she was set up with a new client, he'd been with one of my other girl's once before and he wanted someone different. She was supposed to meet him at a motel, spend the night and check in with me in the morning. I didn't see or hear from her after that," Craven informed them.

"And you didn't find it suspicious that she just disappeared?" Don asked and Craven shrugged.

"Girl's disappear all the time, go to blow off steam, get ideas in their head, forget to check in, they always show up again eventually."

"Do you have the name of the guy she was supposed to meet?" Jess asked.

"No way, I start giving names to the cops and I lose clients," Craven replied shaking his head.

"Okay, that's fine, then how about we arrest you and see how your client's like that instead?" Don suggested pulling out his handcuffs. Craven stepped back away from him and put his hands up defensively.

"Alright, hey, there's no need for that. Guy's name was Alan Dole, I have the address of the motel he wanted to meet Amy at in my records, I'll get it for you," Craven said walking over to a desk in the corner of the room and sifting through papers, Don bit back a sarcastic comment about him keeping records. "Here it is, the guy's names on their too as well as the time of the meeting. I had nothing to do with what happened to Amy. She was one of my best girls, men always wanted more of her, she made me a lot of money."

"Where were you Tuesday night, between 10 and midnight?" Jess asked and Craven smirked as he looked at her.

"I was with two of my girl's here, I'm not into the idea of keeping my hands off my own merchandise," he stated.

"Did he just admit to being a pimp?" Jess questioned looking at Don.

"Absolutely not, I asked them to go shopping for me earlier in the day," he told them smugly as he put an arm around Emily's shoulders. "You know detective," he continued looking over Jess with an expression Don didn't care for. "You get tired of being a cop I got a job for you right here."

"We'll be in touch," Don told him and he was aware of the note of possessiveness that had creeped into his tone which thankfully seemed to have gone unnoticed by his suspect whose eyes were still on Jess. The two of them left the apartment, not speaking until they were back in the car and on their way back to the station.

"Think he's telling the truth?" Jess questioned as she looked at the information scribbled on the small piece of paper Craven had given them.

"I don't know, let's track down this Alan Dole and see what he has to say and call Danny, give him the address of the hotel," Don suggested and Jess nodded pulling out her cell phone.

* * *

It had taken some convincing and Lindsay making threats of arrest before the motel owner had started to co-operate. He'd pulled out his records and found the number of the room Alan Doles had hired for Sunday night. He confirmed that Dole had arrived but didn't remember seeing Amy Greenwood. He'd spent the entire walk to the room insisting that he'd had no idea what Doles had been planning to use the room for. Danny was glad when they made it to the room and could send the motel owner away.

"That man annoys me," Danny stated as he walked into the motel room with Lindsay behind him. He'd originally been planning to bring Hawkes with him but he'd been called to another scene so Danny had dragged Lindsay out of DNA where she'd been processing evidence for an old case. He hated motel rooms, he hated trying to process them because they were a mess of DNA and trace evidence and sometimes it was hard to tell what was evidence and what wasn't.

"In all fairness, I think I made him nervous when I threatened to arrest him," Lindsay pointed out.

"We have a warrant and he wasn't co-operating," Danny reminded her. "If you hadn't threatened to arrest him I would've."

Lindsay smiled as she put her kit down by the bed. The other advantage of making him nervous was that not only did he become co-operative but he suddenly wanted to tell them every minute detail he thought was important, including the fact that the room hadn't been properly cleaned since Saturday even though it had been used twice since. It was probably breaching several health and safety laws but it meant any evidence that was left on Sunday night might still be there.

"Alright, I'll do the sheets," Lindsay said giving the bed a disgusted look.

Danny nodded and started looking around the rest of the room; he pulled out a pair of pink panties from behind the bedside table which looked like they'd been there for more than just a few days. There was a half eaten sandwich under the bed that looked to be about a day old and he got a few sets of fingerprints off the door handle. He was about to head through to the bathroom when Lindsay called for him.

"I can't believe I'm about to say this but I think the only thing on these bed sheets is a couple of sweat stains," she told him and Danny looked at her sceptically. "They're actually pretty clean."

"Well, that makes one part of the room," he said and headed through to the bathroom while Lindsay bagged the sheets. The bath and sink were both stained; in another surprise the toilet was actually clean. He was pretty sure he saw a cockroach skitter across the floor but it was gone before he could be sure.

"Yo Montana, I think you can knock this off out places to stay list," Danny called as he searched the small room for anything that might be useful. He didn't find anything so he went back to the bedroom where Lindsay was flipping over the mattress to reveal more of the same lack of evidence. "I don't think there's anything here, I'm not even sure our vic made it this far, there's no evidence of her being here."

"Maybe Flack and Angell will get something out of Dole," Lindsay sighed and shook her head. "It's like a ghost committed this crime."

"Let's just get what we do have back to the lab, if nothing else we can rule it out as useful," Danny stated and Lindsay grabbed her kit and the evidence bags with the sheets in. "I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to cancel those dinner reservations for tonight."

Lindsay gave him a sympathetic look. "Probably, unless Dole hands us the murder weapon and confesses to the whole thing then I doubt we'll be closing this case too soon."

* * *

It turned out Alan Dole was a married middle aged man who owed his own small, moderately successful business and had three children, one from a previous marriage. He had a nice house in a nice neighbourhood and a wife that if Jess was honest seemed kind of out of his league. She couldn't understand why a man who seemed to have everything needed to risk it all and hire a prostitute. She and Don walked into the house being led through to Alan's office by his 15 year old daughter while his wife finished bringing in the groceries from the car.

"Dad," the girl said as she walked in to the office. "There are cops here to see you."

Dole looked surprised but smiled and thanked his daughter who went back to helping with the groceries. "What brings you here Detectives?"

"Do you know this girl?" Jess questioned showing him the picture of Amy.

Dole visible paled. "I'm guessing since you're here you already know that I do. She's dead?"

"She was found murdered yesterday, the last time she was seen she was on her way to meet with you," Don informed him and Dole looked at him blankly for a moment before answering.

"She never showed, I went to the hotel, waited until about 2am and then I came home. I would've demanded my money back but I couldn't find Ramiro, her pimp, he usually has breakfast at a cafe a few blocks from here. A friend told me he ate there and that was how I met him. He hasn't been there in the last few days though. I never actually met Amy, I only recognised her from the picture Ramiro showed me when he suggested her," Dole explained and Jess made a mental note to ask Craven why he'd changed his breakfast habits since Amy Greenwood disappeared.

"Where were you Tuesday night, between 10 and 12?" Jess questioned.

"I was here; I had a presentation to make to a client yesterday so I was up more of the night putting the finishing touches on it. My wife can confirm that, she kept sticking her head through the door to make sure I was still alive. She didn't go to bed until a little before midnight," Dole told them and then looked panicked for a moment. "Just, please don't tell her why. I love my wife, I don't want her to know, it would destroy my family."

"Maybe you should have thought about that before you started hiring prostitutes," Jess stated. Dole opened and closed his mouth a few times as though he was trying to come up with a good enough excuse and failing.

"I know it was wrong, my wife is very... she doesn't like to experiment in that area," Dole said looking anywhere but at the two detectives. "Please, I love my family; this would destroy it, my kids..."

"We'll need to check your alibi with your wife, we'll try not to mention your connection to Amy Greenwood but we can't make any promises. If you're involved in her murder however, there's nothing we can do for you," Don told the man. As much as Jess disliked it the investigation would be much easier if they had his co-operation and if trying not to rip his family apart would get them that then she was willing to make an effort.

"That's all I ask," Dole said looking at the floor.

* * *

The waitress put two breakfasts down in front of them and left to take the orders of the three business men that had just walked in chatting about the stock market. This was probably the best chance either of them was going to get to sit down and eat if the current state of the case was anything to go by. They had no solid leads, Dole's alibi had checked out; his wife confirmed that he was home at the very least until she went to bed at midnight which meant he couldn't have committed the murder. They'd managed to keep from telling his wife that Amy had been a prostitute and that her husband had hired her. Don had a feeling though that if they went back to ask more questions she'd be curious and suspicious enough to start asking some of her own.

The two girl's Craven had claimed to be with that night had also backed him up, their testimony might not hold up well in court but for now it put Craven in the clear. He was thinking about looking further into the father, just because he claimed not to have seen his daughter in the last few years didn't mean it was true and he'd already proven himself a liar.

"So in conclusion we have no suspects and no evidence unless Danny and Lindsay found something in the motel which seems unlikely since according to Dole Amy never made it there," Jess summarised as they discussed the case in the back corner of the diner.

"That sounds about right," Don replied understanding her frustration. Usually by this point they had something, a lead, a suspect, some small piece of evidence, something to go on, right now they had nothing.

"Maybe this we should talk to Craven's other girls, if she was friends with any of them then they might know something," Jess suggested between mouthfuls of bacon.

"Good idea, after we're finished here we can check in with Danny and then head back over to Craven's place," Don agreed though he doubted that if Craven had anything to do with the murder that they'd be too eager to co-operate. It didn't hurt to try though; one of them might just give them something useful to go on. They fell into comfortable silence then, both of them content with eating until his cell phone rang. "Flack."

"_It's Danny, we've got another body."_

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors Note: I know it's been a long wait for this chapter but I did NaNoWriMo again this year so between that and college I haven't had a lot of time on my hands. The new chapter is here though, I promise updates for all of my other fics too. Reviews are loved!**

**Chapter 3**

The crime scene was eerily similar except that instead of an alley the body had been dumped in a quiet part of central park. The victim looked about the same age as Amy greenwood, thin, tall, pretty, she was wrapped in a white sheet like the one Amy had been wrapped in and her body was covered in the same cuts and bruises. He had to ask anyway.

"Are we sure it's the same guy?" Don questioned despite the similarities between the two scenes.

"It's looking like it," Danny stated as he photographed the bruises on her arm.

"These wounds look fresher though, whoever had her, I doubt they kept her as long as they did Amy Greenwood, maybe a day or so," Lindsay suggested as she looked over the body. She picked up the girls hand turning it over and looking closely at the wrist. "These wounds don't look as deep either."

"Body been washed?" Jess questioned and Danny nodded.

"Definitely, there's no blood," he told them.

"And I'm guessing there's no ID either," Jess said and then gestured over to a couple stood behind the crime scene tape. "They found the body?"

"Yeah," Danny told her barely glancing up and Don watched as Jess went to talk to them, "Whoever this guy is he's thorough, there's no blood and no trace that I can see. I'm not seeing a murder weapon either, not that I'd expect to with dump job. There's puncture marks on her arms and legs," Danny continued as he looked over the body, moving to stand by the victim's feet. "There's more between her toes, suggests drugs which also means she could be in the system. I'll run her fingerprints when I get back to the lab, hopefully we can get an ID."

"So we've got a prostitute and possibly a drug addict," Don stated thoughtfully, there could be a connection there.

"We also have a shoe print," Lindsay called from where she wondered off too. They walked over to where she was kneeling, the print was light and not complete but so far it was all they had.

"I don't know Linds, this is a park, people walk around here every day," Danny pointed out as he looked at the crowds of people outside the crime scene tape. "It could belong to anyone," he continued even as he knelt down to photograph it.

"It's all we've got right now," Lindsay stated.

"Let me know if you find anything else," Don told them as he left them and walked over to Jess. She finished talking to the couple and met him halfway, her expression telling him she'd gotten nothing, as she probably expected.

"They don't know her, didn't see anything, they just found here there like that and called 911," Jess summarised what she'd learned. She nodded over to Danny and Lindsay, "They found something?"

"A shoe print, it's not much but it's better than nothing," he told her and she nodded her head as she looked around thoughtfully.

"I doubt we'll have any other witnesses, at least none that are going to come forward, this is a good spot for doing something you don't want to get caught doing," she told him.

"Yeah," Don replied. "Danny's gonna try to get an ID on the vic, there's evidence she did drugs so maybe she's in the system."

"I'll get a search started, many we'll get lucky and the killer left something behind in the area this time, like a murder weapon."

* * *

Danny sat up straight as the computer beeped informing him it had found a match for the vic's fingerprints. The door to the room opened and Lindsay walked in with several files in her hand and a look of annoyance on her face.

"The shoe print is from a common design, no good to us unless we find one to match it too and even then it may have nothing to do with the crime. I called Sid too, he's only just getting started with the autopsy but he said the body had been washed thoroughly again," she told him as she leaned against the desk beside the computer. "Please tell me you got something from the fingerprints because otherwise we've got nothing."

"I got something from the fingerprints," he informed her and nodded to the computer screen. "Our vic was Claire Bell; she was arrested three times over the last six years for drug possession. I'll call Flack."

Danny grabbed his cell phone from his pocket and called Don, relaying the information to him and telling him to let them know what he turned up. Mac walked into the room just as he hung up, Stella right behind him.

"How's it going?" he asked them. Danny had informed Mac not long after finding the body that they most likely had a serial killer on their hands. Another body and he knew Mac would be getting involved in the case, he just hoped they could close it before the Feds came in and took over, things always got messy then.

"We've got a name on our vic, Claire Bell, but that's it," Danny told him. "Flack and Angell are running with that, Lindsay and I were going to go talk to Craven's girls to see if any of them know anything, if we're lucky maybe one of them will recognise Claire."

"Not that we've been lucky so far," Lindsay muttered at the side, it was obvious she was getting frustrated with that lack of evidence in this case and she wasn't the only one. This case was starting to get to them all.

"Check for connections between the two vics and keep me informed," he ordered and Danny nodded glancing at Lindsay who was staring at a spot on the floor. Mac and Stella left again, clearly on their way somewhere, probably to do with their own case. Danny turned to Lindsay who hadn't even seemed to have notice they'd left.

"Let's go get something to eat," he suggested and she looked up at him. "We can stop on the way to Craven's place, I think we could both do with the break."

* * *

Jess stepped out of the car and looked over the small diner in front of her. It was a small place, surrounded by the kind of people Jess would avoid outside of work but the business looked to be thriving so she supposed the owner had to be doing something right. She was stared at by several men as she walked around the car to join Don and she didn't fail to notice that he walked a little closer to her than he usually would.

They entered the diner, trying to ignore the group in the booth by the door that were clearly high on drugs. There was a man behind the counter serving coffees and cake to several women there before he turned to them.

"What can I get you?" he questioned.

"The owner," Don replied flashing his badge and the man stood up straighter.

"You're looking at him, what do you want?" he questioned on edge now, probably expecting half of his customers to be arrested.

"We need to ask you some questions about one of your employees, Claire Bell," Jess told him. "When was the last time you saw her?"

"Last night when we were closing up, she in trouble?" the owner questioned.

"She's dead," Don told him and Jess saw the man visibly pale, the questions running through his mind. "She was found murdered this morning in central park."

"My god," the owner said stepping back and reaching for the surface behind him for support. "How, why?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Jess told him. "You said you last saw her last night, what time was that?"

"About 10pm, we were just closing up and I told her to go, that I'd finish up. She wanted to go pick up her son from her sister's place, they had plans for the today since it was her day off," the owner told them. "Oh God, poor Isaac."

"She has a son?" Jess questioned.

"Yeah, her sister sometimes takes care of him while Claire works. I'm sure you have records of Claire's drug problem and I know what you must think of her but Claire was a good mother, that boy never wanted for anything. She would rather miss a fix than let her kid go without anything, she'd starve herself if she had to for the drugs but that boy was her life, she loved him and she'd do anything for him. Whatever you may think of her, she didn't deserve this," the owner told them.

"Do you have a name and address for the sister?" Don asked and the man nodded.

"Yeah, she keeps the information in her locker, in case something ever happened to her and I needed to call her sister. I'll just go get it for you," he told them and then walked away into the back of the diner. Jess looked around her, there were at least two groups of drugged up people and at least two couples needed to get a room in the next few minutes. She couldn't imagine spending everyday in a place like this, she'd go crazy.

"Here it is," the owner said as he handed them a piece of paper.

"We'll be in touch," Don told the man as he took the paper and the two of them left the diner. Jess waited until they were back in the car to speak.

"To the sister?" Jess questioned and Don nodded.

* * *

Danny knocked on the door and moments later it was opened by a half naked woman that gave him a seductive smile. She couldn't have been older than twenty, if that; she was stood there wearing a corset, panties and too much make up but that was it. She stepped out of the apartment, seemingly oblivious to Lindsay's presence as she took a step toward Danny.

"Can I help you?" she questioned.

"Detective Messer, NYPD," he stated and then gestured to Lindsay. "This is Detective Munroe."

That seemed to stop any further advances by the girl, she looked him over and then turned to Lindsay. "You're here about Amy; I'll get Craven for you."

"That would be great but we actually came to talk to you, you and the other girls," Lindsay told her and she looked at them both in surprise.

"But I don't know anything, Amy and I barely talked, I didn't like her," the girl told him which Danny quickly picked up on.

"Why didn't you like her?"

"She thought she was better than us, better than this life, she didn't say it but I could tell," the girl replied and then turned around to walk back into the apartment, swaying her hips as she went. The apartment was full of more half naked women, girls really, the oldest looked to be in her mid twenties. They all watched Danny and Lindsay walk into the apartment before Craven came through from another room.

"What's going on, who are you?" he questioned.

"They're detectives, here about Amy," the girl who had brought them in told him and there were whispers throughout the room.

"I already told the other two everything I know," Craven stated his annoyance with the interruption obvious.

"Well we didn't come here to speak with you, we came to talk to them," Danny told him gesturing to the girl's that were crowded around the room. "But whilst you're here, do you recognise this girl?" he questioned taking out the picture of Claire Bell and showing it to him. He glanced at it briefly and then shook his head.

"No, she's not one of mine, I've never seen her before, and neither have any of my girls," he told them and Danny raised an eyebrow at him.

"Why don't you let them tell us that for themselves," Lindsay suggested and then turned away from Craven and looked over the girls. They started asking questions sometimes to the group, sometimes to individual girls and the girls spent the entire time dodging them. They got next to no answers and what they did get was bordering on useless. They left feeling annoyed, which was only made worse by Craven's smug smile as they walked out of the apartment.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Lindsay stated as they walked down the stairs and out of the apartment. They were about to get into the car when a voice called for them to wait. One of the girls from the apartment was running down the steps, a light coat covering her lack of clothing underneath.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of Craven, but Amy was my friend and I know something that might be useful, I don't know but..." the girl trailed off. "My name is Emily; I spoke to the other detectives when they came here. Ramiro recruited me at the same time as Amy, she's the only girl in there I ever really talked to, the only one I would have trusted."

"What do you know?" Lindsay questioned.

"She was trying to get out, she'd been putting money aside for almost a year now and she almost had enough saved up to get out of here, out of this life and set up a new one, a better one," Emily told them brushing her hair back from her face and glancing nervously at the apartment. "She wasn't like the other girls here, she was better than this and she was a good person. She even offered to take me with her, to get me out of this life," she continued, getting emotional now and Danny could see the tears starting to form. "We had all these ideas, we were going to get an apartment together, somewhere nice, get jobs at waitresses and spend our money on jeans and hoodies so we could sit around the apartment or go out without anyone seeing more of our bodies than we wanted them to. I guess none of that is going to happen now."

"What would happen if Ramiro found out about the money, her plans?" Lindsay asked.

"I don't know but I'm not sure I'd ever have seen her again," Emily stated meaningfully and then looked at the watch on her wrist. "I have to go, I'm supposed to be meeting a client, I hope what I told you is some use, please catch the people that did this to her, make them pay."

Emily ran off then throwing one more nervous glance back at the apartment before she disappeared around a corner. Danny turned to Lindsay; the meaning of Emily's words was more than obvious. If Ramiro had found out Amy had been planning on leaving he could easily be the one responsible for her death.

"We should call Flack and Angell."

* * *

Meagan Bell looked very much like her younger sister, the same hair, the same eyes. Don watched as she fell to pieces at the news of her sister's death, sobbing quietly for a minute before glancing over at the three year old boy playing with toy trucks in the corner. Claire's boss had been right, the boy was well looked after, he looked like a happy, healthy three year old, dressed in nice clothes and well kept.

"I knew something was wrong when she didn't come back for Isaac last night, I tried to file a police report around 2am but they told me I had to wait, that maybe she was just late or something but I knew. She loves Isaac, there's no way she'd have been so late picking him up and if she was she would have called me," Meagan told them getting her tears under control. "She was a good mom, I know she had problems but she never let them affect Isaac, he was her whole world."

"You had no contact with your sister after she dropped Isaac off here yesterday morning?" Jess asked her and waited patiently for the woman to compose herself and answer.

"None, I take care of him sometimes when she's at work, I'm a nanny you see for another family. I take care of their kids during the day, sometimes at night too, they get along really well with Isaac and the family never had a problem with me bringing him along so it was easy for me to watch him while she worked. It used to be just every now and again but it's been a lot more often recently," Meagan explained.

"Why is that?"

"She didn't like the people at work, the customers, she used to take Isaac there with her but she didn't want to do it anymore, said it wasn't a place for a kid."

"Do you know if anyone would want to hurt her, maybe she didn't pay her dealer?" Don questioned and Meagan shook her head emphatically.

"No one, she always paid her dealer, she has money set aside for it, she wanted to make sure that they never came after her or her son. She was a good person detective, she had her problems, everyone does but she was a good person and good mother. I can't think of anybody that would want to hurt her," Megan told them forcefully as Isaac walked over with a police car in his hand.

"Do you have one of these?" he asked Don who smiled at the small boy.

"Not today but there are lots of them where I work," he told him and the boy smiled and walked over to his aunt with his arms out. She picked him up and placed him on her knees, wrapping her arms around him tightly.

"What about his father?" Jess asked the woman.

"Not in the picture, never was, they went out briefly. He was a drug addict, he didn't pay up and he took off before Claire even found out she was pregnant, he wouldn't even know he has a son, that's if he's even alive," Meagan told them.

"And there's no chance the dealer took that out on Claire?" Jess asked.

"It was years ago, like I said, Claire didn't even know she was pregnant back then and not many people knew about their... relationship, if you could even call it that," Meagan replied.

"Any other men in her life, a new boyfriend?"

"No, Claire hasn't had a boyfriend since Isaac's father ran off," Meagan told them. "I wish I could be of more help but my sister was not the kind of person to make enemies, she didn't deserve this."

Don glanced at Jess; this seemed like another dead end in a case that was proving full of them. "Thank you for your time Miss Bell, I'm very sorry for your loss."

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

**Authors Note: I know this is a short chapter but I wanted to get something posted. I'll try not to be so long with the next update, I've got exams at the moment but once they're over I should have some more time for my fics.. Thanks to, lily moonlight and afrozenheart412 for the reviews. **

Chapter 4

Lindsay hadn't liked being in Craven's apartment the first time and the second time didn't prove to be much better. The girls had their eyes all over Danny, Craven's were all over her, only this time there was much more hostility coming from the man. He'd been less than pleased when one of the half naked girls once again led them into his apartment. He'd come through from the back room with an angry glare on his face, cursing yet another interruption to his 'business'.

"And what business is that exactly?" Danny questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"My girl's here are personal shoppers," Craven replied with a smirk and Lindsay glanced at some of the girls.

"Specialising in lingerie I presume," she commented and Craven turned his eyes on her.

"You know, you and that other pretty cop would make excellent 'personal shoppers', if you could learn to control your mouths," he told them, the whole sentence dripping with innuendo and Lindsay bit back a smile as Danny stepped forward looking less than pleased. It was a shame Don wasn't here, she was sure it would have been interesting to see his reaction too.

"We came to talk to you about the money Amy was putting aside," Danny stated and Craven looked wide eyed for a second, glancing at his other girls as though afraid they'd over hear, get ideas of their own. He motioned them through the back room which turned out to be a bedroom, one smelling of sweat and cigarettes.

"What money?" Craven questioned after he'd closed the door behind them.

"Amy Greenwood was putting money aside, had been for a while, she almost had enough saved up to leave here. She was going to quit your 'personal shopping' business," Danny explained. "I'm sure that didn't go down well. Maybe you got mad, you gave her a place here, a job, she owed you right? Then she thought she could just walk out on you."

"I had no idea that Amy was putting money aside, I had no idea that she was planning on going anywhere," Carven told them angrily and Lindsay could see what his reaction would have been if he had known, if he had found out.

"Why did you stop going for breakfast at Millie's Diner?" Lindsay asked.

"What?" Craven questioned, confused.

"You went there for breakfast all the time, you stopped around the same time Amy was killed. Trying to avoid the client that you let down when Amy didn't show up for her appointment?" Danny asked.

"I had no idea that Amy never made that appointment until your friends showed up here to tell me she was dead. I was avoiding someone else, another client, one who was extremely unhappy with the services I provide. He's a big guy, lots of big friends and they knew they could find me at that diner so I stopped going," Craven explained. "I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with Amy's death. I had no reason to kill her."

"Not even if she was planning to leave?" Lindsay asked.

"I didn't know about that but even if I did, these girls get ideas in their heads all the time, sometimes they try to leave but they come crawling back in the end," Craven told them, smug arrogance radiating off him. He thought he was untouchable and Lindsay decided that at some point she was going to have to find some evidence that would get him arrested, if nothing more than to wipe the grin off his face.

"I'm sure we'll be in touch with you again," Danny said as he and Lindsay turned to leave the room.

"Detectives," Craven called and they both stopped turning back to him. "I didn't know anything about the money but it came from my business, it's mine, it should come back to me now."

"The money was Amy's, it has nothing to do with you," Lindsay told him and walked out of the room, Danny close behind her.

* * *

The case was already getting cold and it hadn't even been open that long. If it weren't for the fact that Don was sure there'd be another body he would be expecting it to end up in the unsolveds. They had two bodies, two crimes scenes, no evidence, no witnesses and the feeling things were going to get worse on this one. He could already tell it was going to be one of those cases, the ones he just wanted to forget about once they were closed but until then wouldn't be able to get out of his head.

He sat back in his chair lifting the file in his hands so he could still read it. The words burned themselves into his brain, every piece of information filing itself away so it could be recalled easily if he needed it. There wasn't a whole lot, names, faces, places, the details of the crimes, but his brain was already starting to tire. He looked at Jess who had pulled up a chair beside his desk, another file in her hand as she attempted to do the same as him.

"I can't believe how little we have," she said, not looking up from the file. "Two bodies and hardly anything."

"The only connection between the victims is the fact they've both been arrested before, multiple times. Other than that they live completely different lives, different neighbourhoods, different friends, different jobs, different lifestyles," Don summed up, putting the file down on the desk and stretching out. He had never liked sitting in one place for long periods of time, neither did Jess and being cooped up in the precinct reading files and making phone calls for hours was doing neither of them any good.

"Maybe that is the connection, maybe our two victims were targeted because of their criminal backgrounds," Jess suggested and Don nodded, it was a possibility. "But why, what could the killer hope to gain by killing a prostitute and a drug addict?"

"I don't know, maybe he feels like he's doing us a favour?" Don said, it wouldn't be the first time in his career he'd come across a vigilante killer. "But then he tortures, rapes and kills them, that's not the MO of someone who thinks they're doing the world a service, it makes him worse than the people they kill."

"He's meticulous in his covering of the crime, the bodies are washed thoroughly, he doesn't leave any of himself on the victims but the crime itself is brutal and messy," Jess stated thoughtfully, staring at the desk as though she though the answers would jump out of it at her. She sighed, the tips of her finger rubbing roughly at her eyes.

"It's late, we should go home and sleep," Don stated as he watched her. "Come back tomorrow with fresh eyes and clearer heads, maybe we'll find something we missed before."

Jess looked reluctant but nodded her head, closing the file she still had in her hands and putting it on top of the others. Don took them all, putting them away before meeting Jess in the locker room. They were both tired, they'd been up early and working late for the last few days and it was beginning to catch up to them now. A decent night's sleep would do them both the world of good.

"Your place or mine," he questioned, somehow there was no question that wherever they went it would be together.

"Yours is closer," Jess stated closing her locker and flicking her hair out of the leather jacket she'd just pulled on. "And we should stop for food on the way."

* * *

Danny collapsed onto his couch, footsteps sounding behind him for a few moments before Lindsay dropped down next to him with a take-out menu in hand. She scanned through it quickly, both of them already knowing what she'd order before she handed it over to him. He grabbed his cell phone from his pocket, reaching for the home phone seeming like too much of an effort and dialled the number ordering for both him and Lindsay.

"Thirty five minutes," Danny stated.

"They always say that, then arrive in twenty," Lindsay said moving herself so she could rest her head on his shoulder.

"Maybe they're trying to impress us," Danny said. "Telling us it'll take longer than it actually will and then turning up fifteen minutes earlier."

He grabbed the remote for the TV, flicking through channels and discovering once again that late night television was terrible. There were a few bad movies on, some cheesy TV programmes, a few chat shows. There were a lot of cop shows on, they seemed to be very popular but for Danny and Lindsay it was just a reminder of work that they didn't need when they were at home.

"DVD?" Danny questioned, resorting to the usual choice.

"Yep, but you're getting up to put it on," Lindsay told him making no move to get her head off his shoulder, no move to do it herself.

"Fine, but I get to choose," he sighed and dragged himself up from the couch, watching Lindsay make herself comfortable on it again, laying down and stretching her legs out where he'd been sat. "I am coming back you know."

Lindsay hummed acknowledgement of his words, closing her eyes and once again not giving any indication she was going to move. He grabbed the first DVD his hand came to knowing that neither of them were particularly interested in watching anything, his mind was caught up between thinking about the case and trying to switch off. He went to the kitchen, letting the intro play through while he grabbed both him and Lindsay a drink, putting them both on the coffee table before laying down on the couch beside Lindsay, positioning himself between her and the couch, his arm draped over her waist.

Lindsay turned to look at him, her eyebrow raised as the DVD finished with its previews and the actual movie started. "Men in Black?" she questioned.

"What, it's a good movie," Danny defended. He was actually drifting to sleep by the time there was a knock on the door and he realised Lindsay actually had fallen asleep. He climbed over her, going to answer it and paying for the food, taking it back over to the couch and waking Lindsay to eat. Food and then bed, sounded good to him.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**Authors Note: Next chapter is here, I hope you guys like it. Thanks to lily moonlight, conche and afrozenheart412 for the reviews. **

Chapter 5

Lindsay put the case file down on the desk with a frustrated sigh. There was nothing jumping out at her, no leads they'd missed before, no piece of evidence they hadn't fully explored. Their suspects all had an alibi for at least one of the murders. She leant back in her chair, thinking over everything in her head and still coming up with nothing.

"You alright?" Stella asked from the doorway.

"Yeah, just this case is driving me crazy," Lindsay smiled as Stella stepped into the office, sitting down in Danny's chair.

"I saw Don earlier, he said pretty much the same thing," Stella replied.

"We just don't have anything, this guy has tortured, raped and killed two women and we have nothing on him," Lindsay explained, feeling her frustration at the case rise up a notch. "Everything seems to lead to a dead end. The worst part is, I doubt he's done yet."

"Well then you just have to keep at it, sooner or later he'll slip up and that's when you'll get him," Stella told her and Lindsay nodded, she already knew that, somehow it helped to hear it though. She didn't want to think of how many people might have to be killed before they could get what they needed on this guy.

"I just spoke to Flack," Danny said as he walked into the room with a file in hand. "He and Angell are thinking we might have more than one perp on our hands. It makes sense; we've got a very brutal killing and a meticulous cleaning job."

"You're right, that does make sense," Lindsay agreed wondering why they hadn't thought of that possibility before.

"I've also finally managed to get a hold of Amy Greenwood's cell phone records, we're still waiting on Claire Bell's but this is a start, I don't know what could be taking them so long," Danny continued. "Guess who Amy called on Sunday night?" he questioned giving them a second to come up with an answer and continuing when they didn't. "Craven, she called just before 10pm. We know she was scheduled to meet with Dole at 10 but never showed."

"So she probably made that phone call within minutes of being kidnapped," Lindsay finished for him and he nodded.

"Flack's on his way over here, we're gonna go talk to Craven again," Danny stated and Lindsay stood up.

"And I'll go see if I can light a fire under a few people's asses and get Claire Bell's phone records," she told him nodding to Stella as she left the office. At least this gave her something to do and if they were lucky Danny and Don would get something out of Craven, like a confession. She knew they weren't that lucky but it would save her the effort of having to find something else to put him away on. The man seriously needed to be in jail, just for the fact that it would annoy him.

* * *

Danny knocked on the door and as expected it was opened by a half naked girl no older than nineteen. She obviously recognised them both right away, the seductive look vanished from her face as soon as she saw them, replaced with a pout as she turned around and walked back into the apartment without a word. Attention was immediately diverted to him and Don as they followed her in, half the girls abandoning what they were doing to stop and stare, for varying reasons he was sure.

"Ramiro, the detectives are here again," the girl called and Craven appeared once again from the back room looking annoyed at the constant interruptions.

"What now?" he questioned.

"That's not a great way to greet guests," Danny commented. "We're here about a phone call."

"What call?" Ramiro scowled.

"Amy called you at 9:53 on Sunday night," Don explained. "We know she never made it to her meeting at the hotel at 10 so that phone call was likely made within minutes of her kidnapping."

"And you still think I had something to do with it," Craven stated gesturing for them t o follow him through to the bedroom in the back. He told the three girls in there to leave and from the looks of things Danny thought they may have interrupted something. Craven closed the door behind them, turning angry eyes on the detectives. "Amy called me, said she thought someone was following her, asked me to come pick her up."

"And did you?" Don questioned.

"No, I told her to get to her meeting at the hotel," Craven replied and Danny shook his head slightly, disgusted, if he'd just gone to pick her up...

"Did she see the person that was following her?" Don asked his own disgust clear in his voice. He knew if Lindsay called him telling him she thought she was being followed he'd be out of the house so fast no one would see him for dust. Hell, if any of the women he knew thought they were being followed, probably even the guys; he'd be on his way before they could even finish talking.

"I don't know, she didn't say. I told her to get to her meeting. She got mad, told me she was done, after that one she was leaving," Craven replied, leaning back against the dresser, his arms folded over his chest.

"That make you mad?" Danny questioned raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, of course it did," Ramiro half yelled. "Bitch didn't know how good she had it. She was nothing before I found her and I gave her a home, money in her pocket and she thinks she can just walk away whenever she feels like it? I don't think so."

"So, what, you went over there to teach her a lesson?" Danny asked.

"No, I told her there was no out unless I said do, told her I owned her. I told her to get to her meeting and then get her ass back here or there'd be consequences. Then I hung up on her," Craven replied, getting himself wound up as he spoke. "Bitch never came back, I never saw her again after that phone call."

"That's because she was kidnapped, raped and tortured for two days and killed," Don reminded him. "If you'd just gone to pick her up, or even just stayed on the phone with her that might not have happened."

Craven scoffed. "Ain't my fault."

Danny could tell Don was annoyed, he was annoyed himself and anything more that Craven had to say would only wind them up further. Even if Craven knew something he wasn't going to tell them and he still had an alibi for the time of the murder.

"We'll be in touch again," Don told him, the words a veiled threat and Danny decided he wanted in on Lindsay's plan to make sure this guy did jail time for something, anything. The two of them left, getting several looks from the girls who had obviously heard Ramiro shouting. "He's an ass but I don't think he has anything to do with the murders," Don said as they got in the car. "He may have had reason to kill Amy but there's no evidence he even knew Claire Bell."

"I think you're right," Danny stated. "Still, his ass needs to be in jail."

"No kidding," Don replied, starting the car.

* * *

It was the buzzing of a cell phone that woke him and it took him a moment to realise it was his phone and not Jess's that was buzzing. He disentangled himself from her, the movement waking her up instantly. Grabbing his cell phone he mumbled into it hoping it at least sounded something like his name.

"_There's another body," _Mac's voice informed him and Don sighed.

"You sure it's the same guy?" he questioned sitting up, more awake now.

"_White sheet, stab wounds, slit throat, body obviously cleaned," _Mac listed off and Don ran a hand over his face as the bed moved and Jess sat up beside him, tired eyes watching him.

"Yeah, that sounds like our guy," Don replied, telling Mac he'd be there with Jess soon and sighing.

"He killed again?" Jess asked the obvious and Don nodded as he got out of the bed. She followed suit, heading through the bathroom as Don grabbed his pants from earlier and a clean shirt from the closet, changing into them. Jess emerged from the bathroom again and quickly found her jeans, getting dressed as Don headed through to kitchen where he was pretty sure he'd left his keys earlier. He found them on the counter just as Jess joined him, they'd have to get coffee and breakfast later, right now the scene was calling them.

"After this case is done with, we're sleeping in all morning and then having breakfast in bed before spending the rest of the afternoon sleeping," Don told her and Jess smiled as she pulled on her jacket, kissing his cheek and heading for the door. He didn't like the early morning phone calls, having to cancel dates at the last minute because they found a new lead on case or any of the other things that came with the job. At least with Jess though, he didn't have to explain himself over and over again, hadn't had to explain it even once. She understood, she lived the same life, had the same problems, it made everything a lot easier.

"Whose turn is it to by breakfast?" Jess questioned as they got in the car. "I think it's mine."

"No, it's mine," Don replied. "You bought lunch yesterday."

"I bought a sandwich as I was passing the shop," Jess said as she got in the passenger seat.

"Still makes it my turn," Don stated as the two of them headed for the crime scene. They arrived to find Mac and Hawkes already processing the scene. Like the first murder the body had been dumped in an alleyway, naked except for the bloody white sheet she was wrapped in. The girl looked to be Mexican, young like the others had been.

"So, do I need to ask what we've got?" Don questioned as he walked over to the two CSI's.

"We've only just started processing," Mac told them. "It looks like the body was washed again though; we've got pretty deep cuts around her wrists so she was probably tied up for some time. Some of the cuts and bruises look like they've started healing so they're probably at least a couple of days old."

"So he kept her for a couple of days then, like Amy Greenwood," Jess stated as she walked over to where Hawkes was knelt next to the body. "Needle marks, maybe another drug addict?"

"It would fit," Don replied.

"This doesn't though," Hawkes stated getting everyone's attention as he lifted something from the body.

"Hair," Jess said from where she was knelt next to him. "Maybe he messed up this time."

"Let's hope so," Mac said as Hawkes put the hair into an evidence bag and handed it over to Mac.

"Cause of death looks to be the cut throat again but the stab wounds are pretty deep so one of them could probably have finished her off too. She hasn't been dead long either, probably just a few hours," Hawkes told them.

"So that would put time of death somewhere around midnight," Don said as he checked his watch.

"She found the body?" Jess questioned, gesturing to a woman stood just outside the alleyway.

"Yeah, said she was coming home from work, had to stay late to sort out some files and found the body in the entrance to the alley," Mac explained and Jess stood up. "I'll go talk to her then I'll see about getting an ID on our vic, I'm willing to bet she's in the system."

"And I'll go canvas the neighbourhood, see if anyone saw anything," Don stated as he followed Jess out of the alley. "Waking people up at 2:30 in the morning is always fun."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

**Authors Note: This chapter is almost entirely case centric. Let me know what you think. Special thanks to lily moonlight and afrozenheart412 for the awesome reviews. **

**Warning for mentions of sexual assault, not much but I felt I should forewarn. **

Chapter 6

Danny walked into Mac's office, Don already there talking to him about the case. Mac had gotten involved once the third body had shown up and a lot of the lab's resources and personnel were being assigned to the case. Three victims definitely meant serial killer which also meant there would be more bodies to come. He held up the file in his hand, passing it across the desk to Mac.

"Victim is Maria Thorpe, 18 years old, her parents moved here from Mexico when she was just a baby. She's got priors for drug possession, as does her only still living family, her brother," Danny informed them. "Her blood work came back positive for heroin."

"So she fits the same pattern as the other victims," Don said. "Young, pretty and in the system."

"Sid confirmed cause of death was the cut throat, severed the carotid artery," Mac told them. "He counted up nine stab wounds by the time he was done, add to that the rest of the cuts, bruises and burns on the body and it doesn't paint a pretty picture of what these girls are going through while our perp has them."

"We're still thinking it's more than one guy," Don stated as Mac handed him the file. "The actual crime itself is messy and brutal but the cleanup is meticulous, they don't miss anything."

"Except the hair on Maria Thorpe," Danny mentioned.

"Did we get anything on that?" Mac questioned and Danny shook his head,

"DNA confirms it wasn't Maria's but we didn't get a match in CODIS," Danny explained as Mac's office door opened again. Three men turned to see Stella walk in, looking a little flustered, she'd obviously rushed to his office.

"You guys are gonna want to see this," she said, grabbing the television remote from Mac's desk and flicking the TV in the corner on. The news came on, a blonde woman, smartly dressed in a suit stood with a microphone in hand outside the precinct.

"_The killer appears to be targeting young woman, kidnapping them and holding them for several days during which time they are both physically and sexually assaulted. Three bodies have been found so far and the police currently have no leads and no suspects,"_ the woman informed them all.

Stella muted the TV as the woman continued, putting the remote back down on Mac's desk. "It's on every news channel."

"And they know a little too much for someone to have just stumbled across the case, they have to have been told," Don stated.

"Try to find out who talked and make sure they don't leak any more information, the last we thing we need is a panic," Mac instructed Don who nodded and left immediately, already pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, probably to give Jess a heads up, if she didn't know already. Mac's phone started ringing; from the look on his face he'd already guessed who would be on the other end of the line. "Track down Maria Thorpe's brother and bring him in, at the very least he needs to be notified and make the identification, see what you can learn from him."

Danny and Stella both nodded and left the room as Mac answered his phone, his entire demeanour shifting, the higher ups were gonna give him hell over this one.

* * *

A lead had come through on Stella's other case which apparently was likely to close the case so she'd had to leave to follow that up. Jess had joined Danny in waiting for Maria Thorpe's brother to be brought in; a couple of uniforms had picked him up at the home he shared with his sister. Don was still tracking down the information leak though Jess wasn't sure how much luck he was going to have with that, there was only so much time he could spend on it with a serial killer on the loose.

Maria Thorpe's brother was finally brought in, shouting and protesting that the drugs weren't his, that they'd been planted. He was still shouting as he was forced into a chair in the interrogation room, he stood back up almost immediately, still protesting innocence.

"Sit down Mr Thorpe," Danny ordered, holding the man's gaze until he relented and finally took his seat, hands fidgeting on the table.

"Mr Thorpe, when was the last time you saw your sister?" Jess questions and Thorpe looked between the two detectives nervously.

"A few days ago, why is she in trouble?" Thorpe questioned. Danny and Jess exchanged a look and it was Jess who answered the questioned.

"I'm sorry Mr Thorpe but Maria's body was found in the early hours of this morning," she told him, watching the man's eyes widen as he looked frantically between the two detectives. He shook his head and opened his mouth a few times as though trying and failing to find words.

"How, I mean, was it..." he started, shaking his head again. "Was it drugs?"

"No, it wasn't drugs," Jess told him. "We found heroin in her system but that's not what killed her."

"She was murdered," Danny stated, allowing Thorpe a few moments again to wrap his head around what he was being told.

"Murdered?" he questioned. "No, she... are you even sure it's her?"

"We're sure, DNA confirmed it," Danny told him and the man started shaking his head again, biting his nails, and fidgeting more. "I know this is hard but we need to ask you a few questions," Danny told him. "Did your sister have any enemies, anyone that would want to hurt her?"

"No," Thorpe said, shaking his head again. "She is... she was a sweet girl."

"How about your drug dealer?" Danny questioned and Jess watched Thorpe for a reaction, she knew it was going to be a touchy subject.

"I told you, the drugs weren't mine," he stated adamantly as though for a moment he'd forgotten why he was there, that his sister was dead. He must have remembered though because he sat back in his chair quietly, his eyes staring intently at the table. "We were paid up, we didn't owe anyone anything, not anymore."

"Anymore?" Jess caught on. "So you did owe someone before?"

"We went through a rough patch a few months ago, ended up owing a couple of people some money but it was all taken care of, everyone was paid and there were no hard feelings, they wouldn't kill her now," Thorpe explained.

"Was it normal for your sister to disappear for a few days?" Danny questioned and Thorpe shook his head. "Then why didn't you report her missing, if she hadn't come home, what didn't you call the police?"

"I'd used the last of our drugs, we hadn't even realised we had so little left, she went to score some more and she never came back. I didn't think anything of it at first but then she still didn't come home and I was high, I didn't want to get arrested, I wasn't thinking straight," he explained himself, eyes still fixed on the table in front of him.

"And afterwards?" Danny asked. "Why didn't you report her missing afterwards?"

"I went to a friend's place to see if she was there, she wasn't and I told him that she was missing and I was gonna have to talk to the cops but he said she was probably just out having a good time, she hadn't been gone that long and then I had another fix and..."

As bad as she felt for him, losing his sister, Jess was disgusted. While his sister was being raped and tortured, fighting for her life he was getting high instead of reporting her missing. She managed to keep her tone neutral as she asked him where his sister would have gone for the drugs and then allowed a uniform to lead him away to identify his sister's body.

"I'm seeing way too much of the not so nice side of humanity on this case," Danny stated after Thorpe was gone and Jess nodded her agreement. "So we head down there and see if anyone saw our girl a few nights, see if they saw her leave with someone?"

"Sounds like a plan."

* * *

Don walked back into the precinct to see Jess, Danny and Lindsay stood at Jess's desk, Lindsay with several files in hand. He walked over to join them, getting tired smiles and nods in acknowledgement, this case was starting to get to them all now.

"Did you find the leak?" Danny questioned and Don nodded.

"Yeah, it was Johansson, apparently he said something to his girlfriend whose sister is a reporter, next thing he knew it was all over the news, Captain said he'd handle it," Don told them. He hadn't liked having to rat out the other detective but they couldn't afford to have information on a case, especially one as sensitive as this one, get out into the media. "You guys catch the press conference?"

"I did, they used lots of very nice words to dress up the fact that, yes we do have a serial killer, and the police do in fact not have any leads or suspects but people should still feel safe to go about their daily lives however they should exercise some caution," Lindsay summed up the entire press conference with a sigh.

"We missed it, we were a little busy being propositioned by prostitutes and drug dealers," Jess stated and Don gave her a curious look, expecting more explanation. "We spoke to Maria Thorpe's brother, the last time he saw her she'd set out to score some drugs, we went so find out if anyone saw anything; they didn't. Danny got some nice offers though, some of those girls were pretty, looked like they thought Christmas had come early."

Danny narrowed his eyes at the teasing. "How about we talk about the offers you got, there were some pretty persistent men out there and a lot of money being thrown your way."

"I told you before, I get some good offers in those places," Jess replied unfazed. Don however did not find it quite as amusing as everyone else seemed to though he kept his comments to himself.

"Bottom line," Lindsay stated. "We still have nothing."

* * *

It was dark and she should have been at home by now but she'd been following up an anonymous tip that had come in, it had turned out to be nothing but it was well passed the end of her shift when she'd returned to the precinct. She had been about to head out of the door when the call came in, a body found in the construction yard, similar to her other victims but not, was what the captain had said before sending her out to see for herself. The wind was blowing making the night air cold and Jess pulled her coat tighter around herself as she stepped under the crime scene tape and joined Danny, Mac and Stella at the body. They'd already been here for a while from the looks of things, several evidence bags were sitting by Mac's feet.

She knew what the captain had meant now, the woman was young and pretty, she'd been stabbed repeatedly, cut; her throat had been slit in the same manner as the other victims. There was no white sheet though, in fact the girl was still partly dressed, her underwear had been torn from her, her t-shirt and skirt bunched up to expose her body.

"Are we sure this is the same guy?" Jess questioned, the similarities were there, but so were the differences. Thinking of the news that morning, the information leaked to the press. "We could be looking at a copycat."

"That was my first thought too," Mac stated, Jess could hear a 'but' coming. "But there's too much detail that the press didn't get their hands on. The stab wounds, the cuts, the throat, the press didn't get any of that."

"Coincidence?" Danny suggested, the sound of his voice suggesting even he didn't believe that.

"Possible but not likely," Mac replied.

"Killer lost his patience, maybe tried to kidnap her and she fought back?" Stella threw in there, a more likely possibility than the others.

"Well if this is our guy then he's messed up cos there's no way this body has been washed down, the evidence has all gotta be here," Danny said as he continued to photograph the scene.

"We're almost done here, we'll get the body sent to autopsy. I've already called Sid, he's on his way back in, this is a priority," Mac told them and there were nods of agreement from everyone.

"Did we get an ID?" Jess questioned, gesturing to the purse that was several feet from the body, a crime scene marker next to it.

"Ashley Hail," Mac told her.

"Who found the body?" she asked.

"Construction worker," Stella answered gesturing to a man stood nearby talking to a couple of uniforms. "He left his coat here when everyone headed home for the day, was coming back for it when they found the body."

"I'll go talk to him," Jess said, walking off to toward the uniforms.

* * *

After speaking to the construction worker who unsurprisingly hadn't seen anything other than body Jess had gone to the lab. Sid had made a start on the body, he'd already sent several samples off to be analysed and Jess had followed those to Danny who'd been working in DNA to make sure they got done as fast as possible. She'd stuck around, wanting confirmation that Ashley Hail was indeed another victim.

Danny had confirmed it, the DNA from the hair and semen were a familial match to the hair found on Maria Thorpe. It not only confirmed Ashley Hail was another victim but that they were dealing with more than one guy, brothers by the looks of things. There was still no match in CODIS but Jess felt that they at least had more information than they'd had that morning.

She'd fully intended to go home but found herself walking into Don's apartment instead. It was quiet, all the lights were off and she locked up again before heading through to the bedroom. Don was asleep, he'd left the precinct hours ago and glancing at the clock she realised she should have too. She changed in silence, trying not to wake him which she knew would be an achievement, the man was a light sleeper and any noise or movement around him that was out of place would usually wake him up. She opted for one of his large, oversized shirts instead of her own pyjamas, not just for the fact that it was quicker but his clothes always made her feel better in the middle of a bad case.

She climbed into the bed next to him, laying down and Don's arm immediately went around her, pulled her close. "What time is it?" he mumbled sleepily.

"About 2am," she told him, not bothering to glance at the clock again.

"You're kinda late," he pointed out.

"We found another body," Jess stated watching as he opened his eyes, a little more awake now.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"We weren't sure it was related. It was a random attack, grabbed the girl in the middle of the street, raped and killed her. The injuries and cause of death looked the same though, Sid came back in to do the autopsy and Danny ran DNA from the semen on the body, it's a familial match to the hair from Maria Thorpe," Jess summed up for him, knowing if she gave him much more his mind would start analysing the information and he'd never get back to sleep.

"Confirms we've got more than one perp," Don stated pulling Jess closer.

"Yeah, brothers," Jess replied, closing her eyes and willing the images of Ashley Hail, still so fresh in her mind, away. "Stella's gonna run with the victims name tonight and hand over to us in the morning."

"Guess we'd better get some sleep then," Don replied, glancing at the clock and realising how little of that Jess was actually going to get.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**Authors Note: Long wait again, I know, bad Hannah. This chapter got kind long so I split in two, the next one should be up in the next few days, hopefully. This one is almost entirely case focused with a few shippy moments slipped in there. Special thanks to; ****lily moonlight and afrozenheart412 for the reviews. **

Chapter 7

Emily and George Hail had been happily married for twenty years, George was a surgeon and Emily was a school teacher. Ashley had been the oldest of their three children, she was in her final year of school and already had her future planned. She wanted to be a doctor, she already did volunteer work at the hospital three nights a week. She was the complete opposite of all the other victims; she was from a happy family, had a bright future ahead of her, had her head in her books and was actually an asset to society.

"She was a good girl, Detectives," Emily repeated for the fourth time in their conversation. Jess and Don had gone to Ashley's home that morning to speak with her parents, they'd been notified last night of their daughter's death and they'd arrived to a scene of grief. Both of Ashley's siblings were old enough to understand what was happening, her brother was fifteen and her sister was nine, it was painful to watch them trying to comfort their parents.

"Was there anyone you know of that Ashley didn't get along with?" Jess questioned.

"No, she wasn't perfect but she was a good girl, all she wanted to do with her life was help people, she didn't deserve this," Emily replied breaking down again and Jess watched as Ashley' little sister gave her mother a tissue and wrapped an arm around her.

"Was there anyone who had some influence over your daughter, a friend maybe, who could convince her to go somewhere she wouldn't normally go?" Don asked, turning to the father and allowing Emily a break from the questions. They needed to find out where the killer had crossed paths with Ashley Hail, why he'd broken from his usual M.O. to kill her.

"Ashley didn't associate herself with people like that, her friends are good people. She wasn't the type of person to get herself in trouble, to allow her friends to get themselves in trouble, she'd sooner call me and have me sort things out than let anything get out of hand," George told them as he sat beside his crying wife, resting a hand on her back to comfort her. "Her friend Nicole was probably the most influential person in my daughter's life outside of the family, the two of them were close to inseparable, have been since they were little. Nicole isn't like that though, the two of them could be mischievous when you put them together but they would never get involved in anything they really shouldn't."

"So Ashley was pretty close to Nicole?" Jess asked and George nodded.

"Nicole is like family," he replied and Jess made a mental note to make sure she spoke to Nicole, there might be things Ashley wouldn't tell her parents that she could easily have told a close friend, perhaps Nicole would know where the killer could have come across Ashley. "You think she was involved in something don't you?" George accused. "I can tell you Detectives, you're wrong."

"We're not saying your daughter was up to anything, we're just trying to determine where your daughter's killer might have come across her. She's very different from the other victims, almost everything about your daughter's death is different, we need to find out why," Don told them and Jess could tell he was choosing his words carefully, trying not to upset the family anymore than they already were. "Did your daughter mention anything out of the ordinary, maybe a concern that she was followed or someone hanging around her that she was concerned about?"

"No, nothing like that and believe me, my daughter would have told me," George stated. "And before you ask, I haven't noticed anyone hanging around the house or seen anyone out of place when we've been out."

The little girl started to cry and Jess decided they had enough for now, the family needed their space to grieve. She looked at Don who had obviously come to the same conclusion she had as he slipped his notebook into his jacket pocket.

"Thank you for your time, we're very sorry for your loss," Don said. "We'll see ourselves out."

The two of them left, neither speaking until they were in the car and Jess let out a sigh, talking to the families was always hard. She was running on empty right now though, this case had been an emotional rollercoaster and seeing the grief of Ashley's family, having to question them through it was almost more than she could handle right now. She needed a break; she needed half an hour away from this case and all the bodies of young women.

"I'm gonna call Danny and have him take Lindsay to speak with Nicole. _We_ are gonna go get the breakfast we skipped this morning," Don told her as he dialled his cell phone and Jess wondered when he had learned to read her mind.

"I'm not going to argue."

* * *

Lindsay looked through the passenger side window of the car as she and Danny made their way to the school Ashley Hail had attended. It was coming up on lunch time and she was sure that Ashley's class mates would have noticed her absence by now. According to Don and Jess, Ashley's parents had claimed she never missed school unless she absolutely had to. In the last two years she'd had a sum total of three days off, two when she could barely get out of bed to go to the bathroom never mind school and one for her grandmother's funeral. The lack of her presence in her classes would not have gone unnoticed by students or teachers and they knew for a fact that the school had not yet been notified.

"You're quiet," Danny commented as the school came into view. She felt his concerned gaze on her and she had known despite her efforts not to let it show that he would be able to tell something was wrong.

"I'm fine Danny," she replied, the car coming to a stop in the parking lot. "I just didn't get much sleep last night."

"This is a tough case Linds, none of us are sleeping well, there's nothing wrong with that," Danny said and Lindsay looked at him with the smallest trace of a smile. She had a tendency to be too hard on herself, she knew that and so did Danny, when she struggled with a case, she saw it as a personal failing.

"It's just... I'm finding this one a little hard," she admitted, knowing it would do her good and that Danny wouldn't judge her for it.

"A lot of young women, girls really, are losing their lives here Lindsay, you'd have to be inhuman for it not to get to you," Danny stated taking her hand from her lap. "If you need to talk..."

He trailed off and Lindsay smiled, genuinely this time, he was fine until he realised he was talking about feelings and sounding like a 'softy' at least in his opinion. "Thanks."

They both got out of the car then and spotted the Principal standing near the entrance to the school. They had called ahead to let him know they were coming, that their visit was regarding a student but they hadn't been specific, it hadn't felt right at the time to tell him over the phone so they'd opted to do it in person.

"You must be Detectives Messer and Monroe," the man greeted them; he seemed apprehensive but given that their presence couldn't mean anything good Lindsay wasn't surprised. "I'm Gavin Daniels, the principal here. I'm sure whatever you're here to tell me isn't a conversation for the open so why don't we go to my office."

They followed Daniels to his office; the students were still in class so the hallways were more or less empty. Daniels office was much like Lindsay remembered her own high school principal's office being, she'd been there enough times to remember it. She and Danny took a seat opposite the principal who straightened his suit nervously.

"We're here about Ashley Hail," Danny informed him, getting straight to the point.

"Yes, her absence has already been brought to my attention, it's unusual for her not to be here, even more so for her parents not to have notified us," Daniels replied. "Is she alright, has something happened?"

"I'm sorry Mr Daniels but Ashley Hail was murdered last night," Danny told him and Lindsay watched as the older man paled, his eyes widening and his hands going to the desk to steady him even though he was sat down. They allowed him a moment to absorb the news, to wrap his mind around it before continuing.

"I know this is a shock but we need to speak to you and to Ashley's friends, anyone who might know anything," Lindsay said gently and the man nodded, taking another moment to gather himself back together. "If she saw the school's councillor recently that would be a good place to start."

He nodded again. "I'll have her brought here right away."

He used the intercom on his desk to speak to his receptionist asking for the woman to get the councillor.

"How are her family?" he questioned.

"They're still trying to process everything," Lindsay told him and he nodded his head yet again, words seeming to elude him for now. There was a knock at the door a moment later and a young woman stuck her head in.

"Eva come in, this is Detective Messer and Monroe with the NYPD, Detectives this is Eva Brandon, she's the school guidance councillor," the principal introduced. The woman smiled and shook their hands, curiosity and wariness warring for dominance over her face. "They're here about Ashley Hail, she was killed last night."

"Oh my God," the woman exclaimed, her legs going week and her hand going to the desk for support. "Ashley's dead."

Danny moved aside to let the woman sit down for which she gave him a grateful nod, the tears in her eyes just about held back for now. "You've seen her recently," Danny deduced from her reaction and the woman nodded, giving Daniels a small smile as he handed her a glass of water.

"She's been a regular visitor for the last couple of years," Eva told them, her hands shaking as she held the glass. "She's a very committed student from a family with a lot of drive and high expectations, she often felt the weight of them and would come and talk to me when she felt she needed some release from it. She's really gone?"

"I'm afraid so," Lindsay replied. "We believe she was killed by a man that has killed several other women."

"The ones from the news?" Eva asked. "But they were all.., prostitutes and drug addicts weren't they, Ashley wasn't like that are you sure it was the same person?"

"We're sure, DNA confirmed it. There's a lot about Ashley's death that doesn't fit with the other crimes, we need to find out why," Lindsay told her. "You said she often came to talk to you when she felt under pressure, when she needed a release, is it possible she had other ways to get that release, ways she wouldn't have told people about?"

"Absolutely not," Eva replied immediately. "Ashley definitely felt the pressure but she was one determined young woman, she had her mind set on being a doctor and she would never do anything to jeopardise that. She always handled whatever was thrown at her and when it became too much she would come and talk to me."

"She must have had something though, some way of coping with it all outside of her sessions with you," Lindsay said knowing that as much good as talking often did, a way to blow off steam, some sort of coping mechanism was also needed to keep from buckling under pressure.

"She did," Eva smiled. "She and her friend Nicole would rent some movies, buy as much junk food as they could and spend a night watching movies and being teenage girls, makeovers, painting toenails, talking about boys and clothes, just a break from everything that stressed them out."

"Nicole was her closest friend right?" Lindsay asked remembering the brief conversation with Don and Jess.

"That's right, Nicole Peters, the two of them were inseparable and both equally ambitious, Nicole wants to be a lawyer and they were both prepared to work hard for what they wanted... Oh God does Nicole know?" Eva asked.

Lindsay shook her head. "Not yet, her family were only informed in the early hours of this morning, they haven't had the chance to let others know yet."

"She'll be devastated... may I be present when you speak with her?" Eva questioned and Lindsay gave her a small smile.

"I think that would be very helpful," she stated and then turned to Daniel's who was stood close by listening in. "You may also want to notify her parents, I'm sure they'll want to take her home after we speak with her."

The man once again nodded his head and left the room, most likely to have his secretary call Nicole's parents.

"When was the last time you spoke with Ashley?" Danny questioned from where he was now standing beside Lindsay's chair.

Eva looked thoughtful for a moment. "It was in her last session with me... four days ago."

"Had she mentioned anything strange, a feeling she was being watched or followed, anyone hanging around that she was concerned about?" Lindsay asked and Eva shook her head after a moment.

"No there was nothing like that and I believe she would have told me if something was wrong," Eva replied. "However anything she didn't tell me she undoubtedly told Nicole, like I said, the two of them were inseparable, they were each other's rocks, I doubt there were any secrets between those two."

"Then we'll need to speak to Nicole."

* * *

Nicole was brought out of class as her father arrived; he had demanded that his daughter not be questioned without his presence. Danny and Lindsay had taken the opportunity to speak to a couple of the teachers, all of whom were shocked and upset by the news, all of them with nothing but praise for Ashley and none of whom had any useful information for them. Nicole arrived in the Principal's office and took a seat on the couch next to Eva, her father standing close by as Daniels introduced the two detectives.

"This is about Ashley isn't it?" she questioned, her voice terrified but sure of the answer.

"I'm afraid so," Lindsay replied softly, leaning forward slightly in her chair. "Ashley was killed last night."

There were tears in the young girl's eyes that she blinked back as she nodded her head, her expression giving off more maturity than any girl her age ought to have. She bit her lip, clearly battling with her emotions but at the same time reaching for Eva's hand by her leg, searching out that little bit of support. Lindsay found it slightly odd that she didn't even look at her father, who was standing right next to the couch but she wasn't here to delve into their family relationships.

"I knew something was wrong, she didn't turn up for class this morning, I tried to call a few times but it keeps going straight to voicemail," Nicole stated as she looked at both detectives. "I guess you have the phone though, right?

"We do," Lindsay replied, it had been in Ashley's purse. "I know this is hard but we need to ask you a few questions, is that alright?"

"Yeah," Nicole said, glancing at Eva who gave her a small smile and nodded her head.

"Did Ashley ever mention any concerns she had about someone, maybe some who gave her the creeps, someone who was always hanging around her?" Lindsay asked, Danny sat back in his chair, allowing Lindsay to lead knowing the girl would likely respond better to a woman.

"Not really, there's a guy in a couple of our classes that has a crush on her, he keeps trying to talk to her and he's kinda weird, he gives all the girls the creeps but... I don't think he would hurt her," Nicole stated.

"She ever mention having the feeling she was being watched or followed?"

"No, she would have said something, not just to me but to her dad or a teacher, she was pretty sensible," Nicole replied with a small smile that disappeared as quickly as it appeared. "When we would get in a car she would always remind people about seat belts."

Lindsay smiled. "Did _you_ ever notice anything, someone hanging around, someone staring at her, anyone that made you uncomfortable?"

"No, Ash and I spent a lot of time together but I don't remember seeing anyone like that," Nicole replied.

"Did the two of you ever go anywhere you shouldn't have?"

"I don't think I like where this is going Detective, my daughter would never involve herself in..."

"Daddy, stop it," Nicole interrupted. "They have to ask these questions, it's their job and if it helps them find whoever hurt Nicole then I'll answer anything they ask. A friend of ours had a party, Joey Finn, he doesn't exactly live in a great party of the city, his mom works here so that's how he got in the school, he wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise. He's a really nice guy though, kinda like me and Ash, head in his books, he wants to get a good job so he can buy him and his mom a nice house. It was his eighteenth birthday and he invited us to his party. I don't think he expected us to turn up but we had some free time before Ash had to be at the hospital she works at so we decided to just head over there for an hour."

"You did what?" her father questioned angrily but Nicole ignored him.

"It was Ash's idea," she smiled fondly. "She thought it would be a really great surprise for his birthday because we knew he didn't think we'd be there. So we bought him a couple of nice birthday presents and we went to see him. The party was actually pretty nice despite the neighbourhood, his friends were all very polite and Joey was so happy that we showed up, genuinely surprised but I think it really made him happy that we took the time to go there. We had something to eat, gave him his presents, wished him a happy birthday and then left. Ash went to work and I went home to do some homework."

"That was very nice of you both," Lindsay told her, making a mental note to check that out.

"You don't think that was it do you?" Nicole questioned fearfully. "You don't think that's where whoever did this first saw her. I mean, it could have just been random right?"

"We don't believe it was random," Lindsay told her sympathetically. "But at this point we have no way to know where this person came across her. Can you tell me when this party was?"

"It was just a few days ago, Friday afternoon, we were both supposed to be going to the library. I thought it was a good idea, I agreed to go, if I hadn't..." Nicole told her, panic edging its way into her voice.

"You couldn't have known and we still don't know that was where this person saw her. You were doing a nice thing for a friend, no one can fault for you that," Lindsay assured her and Nicole nodded, once again blinking back tears. They got little else from Nicole, just a couple of names that were worth chasing up, more to eliminate them than anything else and Nicole left with her father.

"Nicole definitely gave us a lead worth following up, I wonder why Joey wasn't in school today," Lindsay stated as she and Danny got back in the car. They'd asked to speak to Joey once Nicole had gone home but they'd been informed he wasn't there, neither was his mother.

"That's a question for Don and Jess to ask him," Danny replied.

"Poor Nicole, she's got a pretty nasty road ahead of her," Lindsay stated, knowing from personal experience that getting over losing your closest friend, especially at such a young age, was hard, at times it felt impossible.

Danny reached over and held his hand out for hers, keeping his eyes on the road and she took it, took the support he was offering her. "She's a tough kid, it'll be rough but I think she'll work through it, and she'll be stronger for it."

She knew there was hidden meaning in his words as his fingers squeezed hers. "She's far too mature; I think she was possibly the most mature person in that room."

"She's got a good head on her shoulders and she certainly knows how to put her father in his place," Danny stated. "My guess is he wasn't quite prepared for how quickly she'd grow up when he was pushing her for all those years."

"You have to wonder how much of being a kids she's been missing out on, playing in the park, parties, teenage rebellion," Lindsay smiled and Danny smirked.

"I think she's rebelling in her own way, she definitely isn't being told what to do," Danny replied and Lindsay conceded his point. Apparently Nicole didn't need tattoos and boys in leather to rebel against her father, just common sense and a stubbornness to stick by what she wanted to do rather than what her father wanted. "Let's go get something to eat, I'm gonna starve."

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

**Authors Note: A shorter chapter here but it was originally part of the previous chapter. More development with the case and a couple of shippy moments sneaking in. Extra special thanks to; Runner043, afrozenheart412 and lily moonlight for the reviews.**

Chapter 8

Joey Finn hadn't know anything, he'd been devastated to find out Ashley was dead and even more so to think that his party might have had something to do with it. Jess had been quick to assure him that it wasn't his fault, that they couldn't even be sure it had something to do with his party, they were just following potential leads. Jess had come to the lab then to see if any progress had been made on this end and Don had gone to make a few phone calls.

"Still, it seems a likely possibility," Lindsay stated as she and Jess sat in her office at the lab. "Joey's apartment is only around the corner from where Claire Bell lived, the killer could easily have been in the area at the time and spotted Ashley."

"Which would explain where he came across her but it doesn't explain why he chose her, she's still the complete opposite of the other victims, she lives a completely different life. Then there's the fact that he grabbed her from the street, assaulted her and killed her right there, that's not consistent. He... they," she corrected herself remembering that they were likely dealing with more than one person, "usually kidnap these women and hold them for a couple of days. Why the drastic change?"

"I don't know..." Lindsay said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Nothing about Ashley Hail's murder makes sense."

Jess started going through everything they knew in their head, every theory they'd thrown out there, every witness they'd spoken to. She tried to make connections, to figure out which huge piece of the puzzle they were missing that would explain Ashley Hail being killed, why there would be such a drastic change in a well established pattern, one that had obviously been working for the killers.

"We have wto guys right, brothers?" Jess questioned and Lindsay nodded.

"That's what DNA says, DNA from the semen on Ashley Hail was a familial match to the hair found on Maria Thorpe," Lindsay explained and Jess could see in her friend's face that she was trying to catch on to Jess's train of thought.

"So we have two people and two distinctly different personalities in the crime, the brutal, messy killer and the meticulous cleanup..." Jess trailed off and Lindsay looked at her expectantly.

"I'm waiting for the revelation here Jess," she stated, getting inpatient.

"Maybe one of them... was acting alone when he killed Ashley Hail," Jess suggested.

"The meticulous brother must be keeping control, making sure they don't get caught, the other one must have gotten off his leash and attacked Ashley," Lindsay said, catching on. "It makes sense; it would explain a lot of things."

"It's just a theory though, and I'm not sure where it actually gets us, if it gets us anywhere," Jess stated, realising that the revelation didn't get them any closer to actually catching the killers.

"It's a piece of the puzzle," Lindsay shrugged just as Don stuck his head in the room.

"Hey, I just got handed a report of a woman who claims she was almost kidnapped," he told them. "Lauren Towney, she's a prostitute so her claim apparently wasn't taken all that seriously until now. She says some guy in a hoodie tried to grab her off the street, it was the same night that Maria Thorpe was kidnapped."

"That could have been one of our guys," Lindsay said as she stood up. "I'll call Mac and Danny, they'll want to know."

"And we need to head down to the precinct, she's being brought in now," Don told Jess who nodded and dragged herself up from the chair she'd been getting rather comfortable in. She filled Don in on her theory as they made their way to the precinct and Lauren Towney was already sitting behind a desk in front of a one way mirror when they arrived. She was nineteen, about the same age as the victims, similar in size and build; she could definitely be connected to their case.

"Oh look, it's the cops coming crawling back for information, your friends didn't want to hear a word of what I said before so tell me why I should co-operate with you now?" she questioned distastefully as she looked them both over. She gave Don a wink and Jess tried not to roll her eyes as Lauren turned brown eyes on her.

"We believe the man who attacked you might be connected to a series of murders we're investigating," Jess stated and the woman shrugged.

"Why should I care?" she questioned. "No one cared about me, why should I care about others?"

"Because you might know something that can stop anyone else from being killed," Jess stated and the woman looked at her for a moment and shrugged again.

"I'm still not hearing a reason," she replied and then cocked her to the side smugly. "Is the pretty little detective getting irritated with me, you won't show it but I know you are. I've dealt with you female cops before; you think you're all that and you look down your noses at me cos I sell my body to make some cash. You all sit there; high and mighty while the men you pride yourselves on working with fantasise about all the things they could with me. You're around them every day, with your make up on and your hair down but I walk in here and it's me they fantasise about, you're forgotten and I'm the one in their heads. Isn't that right?" she turned to Don.

"Look, Miss Towney, I apologise that you're incident was not taken seriously before now, that's not our department and be assured, there will be questions asked as to why this wasn't followed up. We're here now though and we need your help, anything you could tell us about that night would be appreciated," Jess told her, keeping her outward reaction neutral but polite. Don was wisely remaining quiet, she was pretty sure this interview would be going in a different direction if Lauren's attention was on him more.

"There's not much I can tell you," Lauren finally said, sitting back in her chair, pushing her chest out. "The guy was wearing jeans and a dark hoodie, it might have been black but it was dark. He was white, tall, had a beard, brown eyes I think but I can't be sure. I was walking down the street, looking for a client and he pulled up in a car, I'm not good with types of cars it was... a green, something, I have no idea. The guy told me to get in but... I don't know, I just had a feeling, so I said no. He got out of the car and told me to get in, I said no again and tried to leave so he grabbed me, tried to force me into the car but I got loose and made a run for it. That's it, can I go now?"

"Not just yet, we need to you write all that down for us," Jess told her handing her a pen and paper and Lauren rolled her eyes. Scribbling down everything she said in as few words as possible before shoving the paper back at her.

"Now can I go?" she questioned.

"We may want to get in touch with you again," Jess stated and Lauren stood up.

"I'm sure you'll find me," she stated and then turned to Don. "You ever want to make some of those fantasies come true; I'll give you a discount."

She left then and Jess turned to Don with a raised eyebrow.

"Every one of my fantasies is about you," he stated and she smiled and shook her head.

* * *

The entire team had sat down in the break room, going through all the case files, witness reports, crime scene photos, evidence, everything. Searching for something, any new lead, any connection they'd missed before but so far they'd come up empty. Even Ashley Hail's murder, which had provided them with DNA and fingerprints, had gotten them nowhere. They were no closer to catching this guy than they had been after the first body, not really and they knew it was only a matter of time before they had another body.

"How can we have nothing, they've killed four women, attempted to kidnap a fifth and we have nothing that ties them to any of it," Lindsay sighed as she put down the file she'd been looking through and narrowed her eyes at Danny who was half way through a slice of pizza. "And how can you be eating?"

"I haven't eaten since we had lunch earlier, I'm no good to anybody if I pass out from hunger," Danny defended himself.

"I'm with Messer," Don stated as he reached over to one of the half empty pizza boxes. Jess slid it across to him, grabbing a slice for herself as she did so.

"Just looking at these case files makes me lose my appetite," Lindsay said, looking at them nauseously.

"Are you sure you're not sick, I don't think I've ever seen you off your food before," Stella said as she looked over at her.

"The only thing I'm sick of is this case," Lindsay replied but picked up another case file anyway. As much as she wanted nothing more than to forget the entire case she knew it wasn't going to close itself and the longer it took them to solve it the more women were going to be killed.

"You have to eat though," Hawkes stated. "Danny's right, you're no good to anybody if you starve yourself."

"I suppose we can be glad no one has been reported missing since Ashley was killed," Adam said attempting to look on the bright side.

"But if you think about the type of victim their choosing, they're not really the type that are going to be reported missing, at least not right away. It might be the reason they're choosing their victims," Don said and Adam paled slightly.

"So they could have another girl right now and we wouldn't know it?" he questioned.

"Oh, now I really have lost my appetite," Lindsay stated abandoning her attempt to eat the slice of pizza she'd been picking at, shoving it away from her instead.

"Actually, I think I'm with Lindsay," Jess said, putting the slice of pizza down she'd been half way through eating. "I suddenly don't feel much like eating either."

"Alright, I think that's enough for today," Mac stated. "I want everyone to go home and sleep, tomorrow we start re-visiting everything. I know it's hard but try to get a decent night's sleep, fresher minds might be just what we need."

They packed everything up, tidied it away, Lindsay and Stella throwing out the remaining pizza before Danny and Don could protest. They all left then, even Mac walked out of the lab with the rest of them and Lindsay got in the car with Danny, the two of them heading to his place. As much as she needed the sleep Lindsay wasn't looking forward to curling up in her bed, she knew her dreams would be full of images of the victims. Images of Nicole Peters blinking back to tears and hoping to be able to help put away the man that had killed her friend. Images of a teenager hiding in a bathroom while there were gunshots outside, of a young girl finding the bodies of her friends and wondering why she was the only one that didn't die.

"Are you alright?" Danny questioned and she turned to him, realising they'd arrived at the apartment without her saying a word.

"I will be when we close this case," she replied, getting out the car without waiting for a response. Part of her was glad she'd have Danny with her tonight, that she'd have his warmth to cuddle up to even through her nightmares, that he would be there when the images in her mind woke her up. Part of her wished she would be alone so she could break down, so she could fight off demons she thought she'd laid to rest with the trial but apparently had come back to haunt her for one more day.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Authors Note: Another chapter here, thanks to jessicaflack, Runner043, CSI4lyfNCIS13, afrozenheart412 and conche for their reviews. **

Chapter 9

"And what time was that?" Jess asked the construction worker. She and Don had returned to the construction yard where Ashley Hail's body had been dumped in the hope that one of the workers there might have seen something. They'd known it would be unlikely but with so little to go on they'd had to try.

"About 9pm, I was the last person off the site and there definitely wasn't a body here then," the worker replied.

"How secure is the site at night?" Don asked, if access required a key then it would be pretty hard to drag a struggling girl in unless you unlocked the site first.

"Not very, to be honest anyone could walk in here," the worker told them. Don thanked him and let him get back to work, the man nodding solemnly as he left.

"Well, that seemed like a waste of time," Jess stated with a frustrated sigh. "At least we're making some progress, even if it is painstakingly slow. We know we're dealing with more than one person, we know they're both male, we know they're brothers. Unfortunately, that narrows it down to huge portion of the population of New York. I think we need to go... who is that?"

Don followed her gaze to the spot where the body had been found. There was a man standing there, looking at the ground. "Hey," he yelled as he picked up his pace, heading over to where the man was standing. The brown haired man looked up and saw them; he immediately took off in the direction of the street. Don ran, hearing Jess's footsteps behind him as they left the construction site and he spotted the man running down the street. He went after him, dodging his way through the crowd and then between cars as he followed the man across the road.

He went down an alleyway, coming out onto another busy street at the other side but there was no sign of their runner. Don looked around as Jess caught up to him, both of them breathing heavily as they attempted to find their missing man.

"That was slightly suspicious behaviour," Jess commented breathlessly and Don offered her a half smile. "Killer come back to the scene?"

"Could be, or it could just be someone who knew Ashley," Don replied, shaking his head. "But then why run?"

"Let's just get back, we can put a car on the construction site, if he comes back we can get him then," Jess suggested already heading back the way they'd come. Don went after her, still slightly breathless from the run; lack of sleep was beginning to catch up to him.

* * *

Jess sat down at her desk and sighed, trying to shake off the feeling that was nagging at her but unable to rid herself of it. She heard footsteps approach her, knew whose they were without looking up. Don pulled a chair up next to her and sat down wordlessly; she looked up at him and could tell he'd noticed already that something was bothering her, something more than the case. She didn't know if she should tell him, she could be wrong, she was probably wrong, she was tired and her mind was playing tricks on her. Still, if she was right, which she had a feeling she was, then he should know, it would be irresponsible not to say something.

"I think someone was following me," she stated in a matter of fact tone of voice. She watched the emotions that crossed his face one after another, anger, fear, concern.

"When?" he asked, his voice was calm but his eyes gave him away.

"After I left Marian Vaughn's house," she replied. "When I left the house I could have sworn I felt someone watching me and I saw the same car in the mirror almost all the way here."

"Did you get the license plate number?" he asked her and she handed him the piece of paper she'd jotted the number down on before she'd gotten out of the car. "I'll run it."'

"I'm probably just being paranoid, I'm tired and stressed out," she said as he stood up, feeling foolish now that she'd said something.

"It doesn't hurt to run it anyway, if it turns out to be nothing then that's a worry off both our minds and if not..." he didn't finish his sentence, just walked over to his desk and picked up the phone. Jess looked at the small stack of reports that had appeared on her desk in the few hours she'd been gone. She read the label on the top one, it was from her previous case and she took it and the few underneath it and slid them into a drawer, they could wait until she'd closed her current case.

Her cell phone rang and she looked at the name that appeared on the screen, it was her father and she debated with herself for a moment whether she should answer it. She put it down on her desk and let it go through to voicemail, she needed to focus on the case for now, she could call him back later, he'd leave a message if it was important.

Looking over at Don she saw him finish up on the phone and come back over to her. "Car belongs to a woman named Carla Grace, she's clean."

"Told you I was just being paranoid," she replied.

"Didn't hurt to check," Don repeated. "Just... be careful anyway, if you think someone's following you again, call me."

She gave him a weak smile. "Will do. So Marian Vaughn had a lot to say," Jess told him changing the subject. "She might have been Ashley's friend but I don't think she really likes her, or Nicole for that matter."

"What makes you say that?" Don questioned.

"I think she was jealous, Ashley was a pretty girl, everybody liked her and she was smart, she was going places," Jess told him. "Marian is pretty and she has her circle of friends but I don't think she's willing to work as hard for something as Ashley was. She gave me a few names to look up, people she claims are, and I quote 'weird and creepy', they're other students mostly, one's a teacher, I doubt anything will come of it but..."

"Gotta look into it anyway," Don finished for her.

"Joey Finn is one of the names on this list," she stated and Don raised an eyebrow at her. They'd interviewed Joey together, the kid had been polite and respectful, he was a good student, Jess wouldn't have used the words weird or creepy to describe him. She had a feeling it was more to do with his social status, he was a poor kid from a rough part of the city, kids like Marian sometimes couldn't see passed that.

"Well, we can rule him out, we already spoke to him," Don said and Jess nodded as she pulled out her notebook and handed it over to him. "Six names, hopefully it won't take long to check them all out."

"We can probably do it tomorrow morning, it'll be easier just to talk to them all at school when they're all in more or less the same place," Jess suggested. "In the meantime I'll run background checks."

* * *

They'd known it was coming but that didn't make it any easier, as soon as Lindsay had heard Jess's voice on her cell phone she'd known what the detective had to say. Another body had been found, another young woman brutally murdered. The scene was the same as the first three murders, the killers, it seemed, had gotten back on track after Ashley Hail's murder. Lindsay sighed as she surveyed the scene in front of her, it was still dark, sunrise wasn't for another couple of hours yet and being in an alleyway gave her even less light.

The young brunette was wrapped up in a bloody white sheet, evidence of a beating on the parts of her body that were exposed and Lindsay knew there was far worse under the sheet. Brown eyes stared at her lifelessly; the girl couldn't be older than nineteen, still a child really. Mac was already hard at work on the scene, his camera documenting everything he could see, every discovery he made. If this one followed suit with the other murders, which it would, there would be very little, if any, evidence, it had all been washed away already.

She walked over to join her boss who gave her a nod of acknowledgement as she set her kit down by her feet. The usual crowd of spectators had gathered outside of the crime scene tape despite the early hour and Lindsay drowned out their voices and the shouted questions from the media that had already arrived.

"I guess I shouldn't even bother asking if we have an ID," Lindsay stated as she looked at the body.

"No," Mac replied, pausing in his work to look at her. "But I doubt it will be long, she's no doubt in the system."

"Which I'll check out as soon as I get back to the station," Jess said as she walked up behind Lindsay. "Body was found by Nigel Dorvill, he was standing outside the door of the apartment building," Jess gestured to the building on her left. "Apparently his wife kicks him out when he smokes. He claims to have seen a blue sedan pull up, a man with a dark coloured hoody and a beard got out and got the body out of the back, took it down the alleyway, got back in the car and drove away. He hid in his doorway until they were gone and then called 911."

"Did he see the license plate?" Lindsay questioned.

"No, he said he didn't think to look at it, was too busy trying not freak out, his words," Jess replied. "I've got uniforms canvassing the neighbourhood for anyone else who might have seen something. I'll go see about getting an ID on our vic, I'm sure it won't take..." Jess paused mid sentence attracting both Lindsay's and Mac's attention. Lindsay followed her gaze to the crowd of people outside the alleyway.

"Jess?" Lindsay questioned.

"I think that's the guy from the construction site," Jess said already walking in that direction. One of the men in the crowd took off running and Lindsay figured that was the guy Jess was looking at. Jess ran after him, Mac and Lindsay quick to follow her as she ducked under the crime scene tape. He ran down the street, crossing the road and attempting to run down another alleyway when Jess caught up to him. She threw her weight at him, crashing him into the wall and pinning him there. Lindsay could see her struggling to hold him there and get handcuffs on him but Mac was at her side and the man was quickly subdued.

"There a reason you keep turning up at murder scenes?" Jess questioned.

"Let me go, I haven't done anything wrong," the man shouted, struggling once again to free himself.

"I think you can answer a few questions for us first," Jess replied forcing him back in the direction of the crime scene.

* * *

Joseph Philips was being uncooperative, claiming to have just been passing by both the scenes and curiosity had gotten the better of him. He refused to say anything more than that and Jess was getting the feeling she was going to have to release him. He stared at her from across the table, he was sweating and nervous and if she had more time she might have been able to break him but for now, he was holding out.

"You can't keep me here forever detective, I haven't done anything, unless you're going to charge me, I'm leaving," he said for the third time during their interview. Jess had managed to keep him around longer both of the previous times, ask him more questions but his tone told her he wasn't going to stick around this time.

She left the room, she wasn't going to get anywhere with him without either something concrete to wave in front of his face or a lot more time. She had neither and with nothing to hold him on, she was forced to let him leave. She made her way back to her desk, Don meeting her at it with a file in his hand and a look on his face that told her he had more bad news for her.

"Vic is Jodi Bennett, eighteen years old, priors for prostitution," he stated and Jess looked at him, waiting for the bad news she knew was coming. "Danny and I went to her apartment; she shared it with two other girls. One of her room mates was there, the other is missing."

He handed her another file. "Kaitlin Stone, also eighteen and a prostitute," she said.

"Their roommate said both girls went out to find work on Sunday night, they left together, neither of them came back," Don told her and Jess nodded as she looked through the file quickly.

"So they kept Jodi for two days, same as the others," Jess said. "We have no way to know whether Kaitlin is still alive or not. Why would they take two girls at once, they've never done that before?"

"Maybe they tried to take one and the other showed up, they either had to kill her or take her too," Don suggested. "Or they're just getting brave, or one girl isn't enough anymore."

"If they took these girls on Sunday night then they were taken on the same night that Ashley Hail was killed," Jess stated, sighing and shaking her head, these guys were escalating.

"Did you get anything out of Joseph Philips?" Don questioned almost hopefully.

"No," Jess replied, frustration rising up in her again. "He claimed to have been passing by and was just curious. He's sticking to his story, if I had more time with him I might be able to get something but..."

Jess sighed again and sat down at her desk; she was fighting off a headache and running on empty. She was tired and frustrated, she hadn't eaten since early that morning and she had a distinct feeling that she had just let the key to this whole investigation walk out of here. Joseph Philips was involved, or he knew something, Jess was sure of it.

"You need a break," Don stated.

"I need to close this case," Jess replied as her cell phone started ringing. She looked at the screen seeing Lindsay's name across it and quickly picked it up to answer it. "Angell."

"Hey," Lindsay greeted. "So I knew I recognised the name Philips, I just couldn't think where from so I looked through some files and then it hit me. There was a Craig Philips on the list of current and recent employees at the diner Claire Bell used to work at. He was a chef there up until five months ago when he unexpectedly quit."

"You're a genius Lindsay," Jess stated as the CSI gave her the address. "Come on," she said to Don, grabbing her jacket and heading for the door. She filled him in on Lindsay's discovery on the way to Craig's address. It was a nice house, in a nice neighbourhood, not somewhere you'd expect a brutal killer to live, but then most killers weren't what you'd expect. Don knocked on the door and a man in his late twenties, maybe early thirties answered.

"Craig Philips?" Don questioned, flashing his badge which the man looked at in surprise.

"No, I'm Kyle Philips, his brother," the man replied. "Craig isn't here right now, is he in some sort of trouble."

"We'd just like to ask him some questions; do you know where he is?" Jess asked and Kyle turned to her, his eyes lingered on her longer than necessary. It wasn't new to her; it had happened before, it would happen again, she didn't usually feel quite so uncomfortable though.

"I think he's out with Dominic, one of my other brothers," Kyle replied. "Can I ask what this is about?"

"We'd just like to speak to him in connection with a case we're working," Don told him. "Has your brother been acting strange at all, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary recently."

"No," Kyle replied shaking his head after a moment. "I haven't noticed anything, whatever you think he's done detectives, I can assure you, Craig is a good guy."

"I'm sure he is," Don said. "We just need to ask him some questions; do you know when he'll be back or where we can find him?"

"I don't think he'll be back until late and I have no idea where he is right now, he and Dominic are probably in a bar somewhere," Kyle laughed. "If you'll excuse me detectives I was just on my way out."

"Of course," Don replied, stepping back to allow the man out of his house. He and Jess went back to the car silently, Don's cell phone ringing as they watched Kyle Philips drive away. "Flack," he answered his phone. Jess could only get his half of the conversation though she quickly determined it was Danny on the other end of the line. She waited quietly until Don hung up, her eyes on the house they had just left. "That was Danny; Mac lifted some DNA off the glass of water you gave to Joseph Philips, the DNA is a familial match to the DNA from our vics, another brother."

"So it's not him, it's his brothers, Craig is looking a little more likely now," Jess said, she had to wonder if that was where he and Dominic were now, if Dominic was the other brother involved.

"Mac's getting a warrant for their DNA, I guess now we just have to wait."

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**Authors Note: Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing the story. Special thanks to; jessicaflack, CSI4lyfNCIS13 and afrozenheart412 for reviewing the previous chapter. **

Chapter 10

They'd gotten a warrant for the brothers DNA but had only been able to find Joseph and Dominic, the other two had not been at home or work and no one seemed to know where they were. Joseph had already been cleared though Mac shared Angell's belief that he knew more than he was saying. Dominic's DNA didn't match either of the samples from crime scenes but the smug look on his face said he knew more as well.

"I already told you, I don't know where my brothers are," Dominic stated as Mac watched through the glass. He'd interviewed Joseph already, he was refusing to talk, Mac had pushed for answers but once he'd requested a lawyer there'd been nothing else he could do. They had no solid case against him and any decent lawyer would have him out of there within minutes.

"You see, for some reason, I just don't believe you," Don stated, sitting forward in his chair. Mac had noticed as soon as he'd arrived that Dominic's eyes kept straying to Angell, subconsciously glancing at her with an expression Mac couldn't quite identify. He could tell Don had noticed as well, in the way he had moved his chair closer to the table, closer to Dominic, situating himself in between the man and his partner. Angell was quiet, letting Don lead the questioning and added the occasional question and comment of her own. She was tense though, in a way Mac wasn't used to seeing from her, Dominic's glances had not gone unnoticed by her either.

"That's not my problem, you can believe what you want, my answer isn't gonna change," Dominic told them.

"We have DNA evidence that links your brothers to several murders..." Don began only to be cut off by Dominic.

"They you planted it, I ain't gonna give you anything on my brothers, family sticks together. Now, I think I want a lawyer, I'm not talking to you anymore without one," he stated. Mac sighed, there was nothing more they could do now, they'd have to wait for the lawyer to show up. Don and Angell joined him in the observation room, dejected looks on their faces.

"Did you get anything out of Joseph?" Angell questioned.

"No, you're right though, he definitely knows something, he's covering for his brothers, they both are," he replied with a nod toward the glass window.

The lawyer had the brothers walking out of the precinct within minutes of his arrival. Mac had known that he would, they had nothing on either of them, no way to prove they knew what their brothers had done. Don had already arranged to have a car on both men before the lawyer had even shown up and they'd been forced to watch as Dominic had smirked at them on the way out.

"At least we know who are perps are now, DNA cleared them both which only leaves Craig and Kyle," Don stated.

"He was standing right in front of us," Jess cursed, self accusation in her voice.

"You couldn't have known and you had no grounds to arrest him," Mac replied but she just shook her head, clearly intent on blaming herself for a little longer. He knew sooner or later common sense would kick in and she'd realise she couldn't have done anything different, they'd all been through it enough times.

* * *

There had still been no sign of the two missing brothers, neither had shown up for work that day and the cops watching their homes had reported no sign of them there either. Don waited in silence at his desk as Mac finished up on the phone, from the sound of it another case had come up and even with the night shift helping out they didn't have enough people to cover all the scenes with most of the labs resources working on one case.

"Don't rush it Danny, be thorough," Mac stated ending the call and Don could tell he was holding back a sigh.

"Another case?" Don questioned, looking around the precinct to see which detectives weren't there and whose case it might be.

"Yeah, I've had to put Danny on it, I've already got Hawkes and Adam working a string of armed robberies this morning," Mac told him.

"Criminals don't take time off just because we have a major case, if anything they're more likely to take advantage of it," Don replied with a shrug. He looked up in time to see Jess come through the door, cell phone to her ear and an unhappy expression on her face. Mac noticed the direction of his gaze and turned around in his chair to see her.

"Well that doesn't look good," he stated as she walked toward them.

"Thank you, call me immediately if anything turns up," Jess said before ending the phone call with a sigh and looking at them. "The officers that were tailing Dominic and Joseph have lost them, both of them."

"You've got to be kidding," Don groaned.

"No, the guys tailing Joseph lost him at the mall and Dominic disappeared in a parking lot. I've put cars outside their apartments in case they go home but I doubt it, they're not stupid enough for that. Stella is trying to track down their mother, her last known address is empty, landlord said she moved out about a month ago, didn't leave a forwarding address," Jess explained, dragging over a chair and sitting down. "Did you have any luck talking to Jodi Bennett's family?"

Mac shook his head. "They hadn't spoken to Jodi in the last 6 months."

"Same story as all the others," Don added. "We spoke to Kaitlin Stone's mother as well. She actually spoke to Kaitlin three weeks ago over the phone. She said her that her daughter had very little contact with the family but they would call her every few weeks to make sure she was alright, they tried to call her yesterday but obviously no one answered."

Jess sat down with a sigh. "I hate this case."

* * *

The rain was coming down hard, Jess grabbed her umbrella from the car but it didn't offer much protection. The scene was already being cleared as she and Don joined Mac and Stella, the body was in a body bag already, protecting it from the rain and hopefully preserving any evidence that might be on it. The two CSI's were frantically trying to gather up anything that they deemed might be evidence even though they knew it was unlikely to be, there was no time for a proper examination at the scene.

"I'd ask you what we have here but I probably know the answer already and you both seem kinda busy," Don stated with a small smirk. Stella paused just long enough to send him a glare.

"Body was found by her," she gestured toward a woman stood beneath a black umbrella with two police officers. Don walked away to talk to her and Jess watched as the body bag was taken away from the scene.

"It's definitely Kaitlin Stone?" Jess questioned.

"Yeah," Stella replied as she stopped looking around the entrance to the alley they were all stood in. She was completely soaked; the waterproof jacket she was wearing had only been able to protect her so much from the rain. Jess shifted the umbrella so that it was covering Stella as well, giving her friend a moment's reprieve from the cold rain, 2am was far too early in the morning for this. "There's nothing here, as usual and anything that was here was probably washed away by the rain."

"So, do you think it's a coincidence that less than twelve hours after we lose Dominic and Joseph another body turns up?" Jess asked, she doubted it.

"I don't know, DNA cleared them both and we have no proof that either of them have any involvement in the killings, even if we think they know more than they're saying," Stella replied. "They could just be protecting their brothers, either way we need to find them all."

Jess shook her head. "If one of my brothers murdered six people, I'd drag their ass into the station, that's if dad didn't get a hold of them first."

* * *

"Stella just called," Lindsay heard Don say as she and Jess decided whether they wanted a snickers or MnM's for their breakfast. "She tracked down Bernadette Philips, the mother," he told them with a meaningful look and they both abandoned the vending machine and followed him out of the precinct. It took them less than ten minutes to reach the apartment Bernadette had moved to and there were two uniformed officers waiting there for them. The elderly woman answered the door in her nightgown and slippers, seemingly bewildered by their presence.

"I hope my boys haven't been causing too much trouble," Bernadette stated after she had invited them in.

"We need to ask them some questions about a homicide case we're working," Jess told the woman, probably not wanting to alarm her more than was necessary. "We were wondering if maybe you'd heard from them in the last couple of days, if you knew where they were now."

"I'm sorry," she told them. "But I haven't spoken to any of them since..." she paused, seeming to think about it. "Since three days ago."

The old woman was lying; she kept glancing at the closed door to her left, probably the bedroom. Jess and Don had noticed too and she could see Don's hand reaching for his weapon. Jess gave Lindsay a look and she nodded.

"Mrs Philips, why don't we step outside and..." Lindsay began to say but was cut off by the bedroom door opening and a gun being fired. The gun was quickly joined by others and bullets hit the floor by her feet and the walls around them. Lindsay handed the old woman over to one of the uniformed officers who quickly took her out of harm's way. She had barely handed the woman over when a searing pain went through her arm and she fell backwards into the wall.

"Lindsay," she heard Jess shout but the sound seemed far away. She looked down to where her hand was clutching her arm and realised there was blood, a lot of it. The second officer that had been there knelt down by her side and Jess barely heard a word she said as she made a call over the radio for back up.

She looked passed the woman, realising that she had fallen just behind the couch and craning her neck to see around it. The door to the bedroom was wide open now, the gun fire had ceased and Don and Jess were moving through it, their weapons aimed ahead of them. Lindsay watched as they disappeared around the corner, willing the sirens that were approaching to hurry. She heard several more gunshots, these ones sounding further away.

It seemed like forever before paramedics came through the front door followed shortly by Don and Jess. Lindsay looked up at them in confusion, glancing at the bedroom door they had gone through the last time she'd seen them.

"Fire escape," Jess stated in explanation. "The brothers got away."

"Which brothers," she questioned through gritted teeth, wincing when the paramedic moved her arm.

"All of them," Don replied. "The four of them were firing on us, we couldn't get close enough to make an arrest. How is she?"

The paramedic looked up as Don directed his question to him. "It's not as bad as it looks. We're going to need to take her to the hospital for treatment but I see no reason they won't release her later today."

"Danny is gonna freak," Lindsay muttered.

"Yeah," Don drew the word out, reaching for his cell phone. "I'd better call him."

"Is Mrs Philips alright?" Lindsay questioned, only now remembering the old woman.

"She's fine; uniform took her down stairs as soon as you got her out. She's a little shook up, though she's maintaining that her sons are good kids and they would never have hurt her. I say she was lucky you got her out so quick because they didn't seem to care where the bullets were going," Jess told her glancing up at Don as he tried to calm an obviously worried Danny over the phone.

* * *

Danny had just arrived at the precinct when he'd found out. He'd just finished informing a family that they had caught their son's killer, it had been more or less an open and shut case. The boy had been murdered yesterday afternoon and by this morning they'd known the killer's name, they'd just had to locate him. He'd been intending to find Don and see where they were on the serial killer case when a uniform had run over to him and told him that there had been a shoot out and an officer down, his heart had almost stopped when he's been told the officer down was Lindsay.

He'd been on his way to Bernadette Philip's apartment when Don had called to say that Lindsay was alright and being taken to the hospital. An ambulance had just pulled up outside the ER and Lindsay was brought through the doors on a stretcher.

"Hey," she greeted when she saw him, he could tell she was trying to gauge his reaction.

"You scared the crap out of me," he told her, emphasising every word as he moved alongside the stretcher.

"Scared the crap out of me too," she replied with a small smile. "I'm fine; the bullet grazed my arm that's all." He looked to her arm, there was a bandage wrapped around it, stained with blood, a lot more blood than he would have liked.

"Just a graze?" he questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"A bad graze," she corrected. Danny was asked to step back as she was taken through a set of double doors and he found himself a seat in the waiting area. His cell phone rang and pulled it out of his pocket, reading Don's name across the screen and walking outside to answer it.

"_You at the hospital?_" Don questioned.

"Yeah," he replied, looking through the glass doors to make sure he didn't miss anything.

"_Lindsay alright?_"

"Yeah, they've just taken her through to get her arm fixed up, x rayed, and whatever else," he replied, allowing himself to be relieved now that he had seen for himself that she wasn't badly hurt. "What the hell happened Don?"

"_The brother's were hiding out at their mothers, we figured out they were in the bedroom and Lindsay tried to get the old woman out. The idiots opened fire and Lindsay got hit before she could get under cover,"_ Don explained.

"I take it the brother's got away?" Danny questioned, knowing he would know by now if any of the brothers were in custody.

"_Yeah, they bolted down the fire escape, Jess and I went after them but they fired some more shots at us, we couldn't get near," _Don told him and Danny could hear the frustration in his friends voice.

"At least no one else was hurt," Danny stated.

"_And we know for sure now that all four of the brothers are somehow involved, even if they weren't, they're all going to jail at the very least for firing on police officers," _Don added and Danny nodded, he supposed that was a silver lining.

"Does the mother know anything?" Danny asked.

"_No," _Don replied. "_Jess and I spoke to her at the scene, we're gonna talk to her again here but she claims not to know why her sons had been hiding out, they'd just told her that they needed to avoid the cops for a while and when she asked why they said to trust them, evidently she did. She thinks her sons are good guys."_

"You sure she's not lying?" Danny asked. If someone wanted to hide out from the police in his apartment, no matter who they were he'd want answers as to why.

"_Pretty sure, like I said, we're gonna question her again but I think she genuinely doesn't know anything,_" Don told him. "_I've gotta go, tell Lindsay to take it easy_."

Danny hung up and went back to his seat in the waiting room, he leaned back and closed his eyes, letting out a breath and releasing all the worry and stress that had been building up over the last eight days, ever since Amy Greenwoods body had been found. His body was demanding sleep but his mind was too concerned with Lindsay to let him.

"Mr Messer?" a voice questioned and Danny's eyes shot open to see a nurse looking around the waiting room. He stood up, and nodded to her that he was the one she was looking for. "Your wife is asking for you, you can come through now."

He was led through to the double doors and she gestured towards a set of closed curtains. Lindsay was sat behind them, her arm being stitched up and a frown on her face Danny recognised as her trying to ignore pain. He walked over and held her free hand, kissing the top of her head and waiting for the doctor to finish up.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**Authors Note: Still getting settled in here at University but I've decided I really miss writing so here's an update for you all. It's the penultimate chapter, next one is the last, kinda sad to see it end. Sorry for the wait but I've just had no time to sit down and write and do it justice but I hope it was worth it. Special thanks to; Runner043, jessicaflack, CSI4lyfNCIS13, afrozenheart412 and moonqueen19 for the reviews. **

* * *

Chapter 11

Mac leaned back in his chair allowing himself just a few moments to close his eyes. Danny had called him from the hospital an hour ago, Lindsay was fine, the bullet had only grazed her arm, albeit badly. The doctor was happy to release her from the hospital and Danny was waiting around there to take her home, even if Lindsay was protesting about it. There had been no sign of the brothers since Don and Angell had chased them out of their mother's apartment.

The two detectives were both working on tracking them down and Mac wished he could offer them more help but with Danny and Lindsay both out and Hawkes and Adam working the armed robberies case it was just him and Stella. The night shift were doing what they could to help out, taking on all the minor cases but they were as exhausted as his team at this point.

He heard his office door open and immediately sat up and opened his eyes to see Stella looking at him with amusement. "Sleeping on the job Mac?"

He sent her a glare but otherwise chose to ignore the question and gestured to the file in her hands. "You got something."

"A house," she told him handing him the file and he gave her a raised eyebrow as he waited for further explanation. "It belongs to Marian Vega, she was married to Dominic Philips but she kept her own last name. She died last year in a car accident but the house is still in her name. I had a couple of uniforms inconspicuously check the place out and they said they saw men in the house but couldn't be sure it was the brothers."

"And nobody else is living there now?" he questioned, hoping this was it.

"Uniforms also spoke to the neighbours, the house has been empty since before Marian died last year," Stella replied with a small smile.

"Call Don, let him and Angell know, I'll meet you downstairs," he instructed and she nodded as she left his office.

Don and Angell were already there when he arrived, parked down the street from the house where the brothers probably were. The uniforms that Stella had sent here were also nearby, having been joined by two others, staying out of sight. Mac parked the car behind Don's and got out, meeting Don and Angell in between the cars, the uniforms headed over as well.

"The curtains are all closed, so we can't get a positive ID on the brothers but there's no reason for anyone else to be in there," Don told them and Mac nodded as he grabbed his vest from the car. Don and Jess were already wearing theirs and Stella was half way through putting hers on. He looked over at the house, the garden was overgrown, weeds were wrapped around the fencing and grass had grown so high it covering part of the front door.

"We'll go in the front, you guys take the back," Mac ordered and then split the uniforms, two going in the back, two in the front. They crept up to the front door, counting on the closed curtains to conceal their approach and hoping none of the brother's happened to look out at that moment. He and Stella stood at opposite sides of the door, the uniforms behind her. A few seconds later he'd kicked in the door; thankfully it was old and gave relatively easily. He and Stella rushed in, guns drawn and the brothers were clearly taken by surprise as they hurriedly tried to reach for their own weapons.

"Drop it, drop it," Mac shouted, his eyes scanning the room, only three of the brothers. He heard the back door crash open just as Dominic tried to make a run for it, followed by shouts from Don and Angell. Joseph gave up quickly, he had barely picked up his gun when he dropped it on the floor and held his hands up, surrendering. Craig tried to shoot one of the uniforms but the shot missed and Mac quickly tackled him to the ground with the aid of the uniform he'd tried to shoot. Don and Angell came in from the back dragging Dominic with them, his hands cuffed behind his back as he struggled to get loose, shouting profanities at his captors.

"Where's Kyle?" Stella questioned but no one answered her. Dominic was handed over to the uniforms and Don and Angell went to search the rest of the house for the missing brother. The rest were dragged out of the house, Kyle and Dominic were immediately put in the back of the two squad cars that the uniforms had left just out of sight.

"Where is Kyle?" Mac asked Joseph, knowing that out of all the brother's he was the most likely to talk. He didn't answer though, just shook his head in resignation, he knew they weren't going to be walking away this time. "You start answering questions now and it might make things a little easier on you."

"He's not here," Joseph replied. "I don't know where he is, but he's not here."

Joseph was put in the back of a car then and a few minutes later Don and Jess came out of the house. "He's not in there."

"We've got three of them, that's a start."

* * *

The brothers were not co-operating, not that Jess had been expecting them to. Don was talking with Craig, they'd managed to get a sample of his DNA, it had already been sent to the lab and hopefully they'd have the results back shortly. Stella was in with Dominic who was apparently refusing to speak at all. Since Joseph was the most likely to break Jess and Mac were both interviewing him, they had all the time they needed with him now and he was already beginning to crack under the pressure. All the brother's had lawyered up, which had delayed any questioning and Kyle was still in the wind.

"I've told you I don't know where Kyle is, he left Marian's place about an hour before you guys showed up," Joseph repeated and Jess was fairly certain he was telling the truth, about that much at least.

"My client has already told you several times that he doesn't know the whereabouts of his brother," the lawyer sat beside Joseph told them.

"Tell us about the women, were you involved in their murders?" Mac asked and Joseph's eyes widened.

"No, we didn't..." he began but Mac cut him off.

"We have DNA," he stated and Joseph slumped back in his chair, defeated.

"I didn't do it, I wasn't involved in any of that," he replied, shaking his head. The lawyer tried to stop him talking but Joseph kept going. "I drove the car a couple of times, when they dumped the bodies. I helped clean up sometimes, but that's it, I never hurt those girls."

"Then who did?" Jess asked, sitting forward slightly but Joseph had stopped talking again at the insistence of his lawyer. "Remember what we said when we first came in here, first one to talk gets the deal, you think your brothers aren't going to be tempted by that?"

"Family sticks together," Joseph stated as though it was a phrase that had been drilled into him and he was just repeating it. He sighed, resignation and defeat clear to see. "Our dad used to say that all the time, when we were growing up, no matter what was going on, he'd always say that. Then this whole thing started and Craig said it, Dominic said it, I really had no choice, family sticks together, it's the rule right?"

"Who killed those women Joseph?" Jess asked him again, the lawyer didn't bother to protest this time, he knew the confession was coming with he liked it or not.

"Kyle," Joseph replied, staring at a black mark on the table. "It was Kyle, he's sick, it's like he needs it, he can't stop himself."

"Tell us what happened," Mac said, letting Joseph confess in his own time rather than push and make him shut down again.

"He was always troubled, you know?" Joseph began. "Even as a kid, he'd get into fights, was constantly in trouble at school. He started dating this girl, Sally, they were together six years, high school sweethearts, except that he beat her. We knew what he was doing, we talked to him a couple of times, tried to talk some sense into him but we never stopped him. Then one day he beat her so bad she nearly died, it was a wakeup call for her I guess, she left him, moved away."

Joseph shifted uncomfortably in his chair, biting his lip and picking at his fingernails. "Kyle didn't take it well, he was so angry but we had no idea... He kidnapped some girl off the street, I don't know who she was, she was about eighteen years old, pretty, or so I'm told. He raped her and killed her, he was so angry he didn't know what he was doing. He called Craig, told him everything and Craig helped him to cover it up. Cleaned the body, dumped her somewhere, I'm not sure where, I never asked for the details."

"Then he suddenly had a taste for it, he went months without hurting a soul but eventually he just couldn't hold it in anymore, he attacked a girl on the street but she got away. He spoke to Craig again and Craig knew he wasn't going to stop but Kyle is messy, he doesn't have the self control to not end up getting caught. So Craig came to me and Dominic and asked for our help, said the Kyle wouldn't stop, that we had to find a way to help him."

Joseph paused, he was getting more and more uncomfortable as he spoke and Jess could tell he was about to get to his part in it all. "And that's what you did, you helped him?"

"We tried talking to him, we tried putting him into anger management classes but he went to the first one and then stopped going. We knew what he was going to do, Craig and Dominic, they said there was only one thing we could do now, I didn't want to but... family sticks together. Craig and Dominic chose the victims, women who were nobodies, the lowest of society, prostitutes, drug addicts, people no one would miss, people who didn't mean anything to anyone. We kidnapped them and took them to Kyle's home, we..."

"Keep going," Jess encouraged when it became apparent Joseph was struggling to continue and she knew what was coming next.

"They were kept in the spare bedroom, tied up, Kyle would... rape them, hurt them, until he couldn't hold back anymore and he'd kill them, stab them to death," Joseph stopped talking and put his head in his hands and they gave him a moment to collect himself. He eventually took a deep breath and sat up straight, it was clear he'd cried but he seemed to have pulled himself together again. "We cleaned up afterwards, washed the bodies, cleaned the room, burned anything that might implicate Kyle. Then we dumped the bodies wherever we could without being caught. Craig and Dominic did most of the work they moved the bodies, washed them, dumped them, I just helped with cleaning and driving sometimes."

"What about Ashley Hail, where does she fit in?" Mac questioned and Joseph paled at the mention of the young girls name.

"That was never meant to happen," Joseph replied. "Kyle had seen her before, he took a liking to her, he wanted her. We told him no, she wasn't a nobody, she wasn't a drain on society, we told him we'd find him someone else. We went out to find someone, we brought back two girls, one interrupted us so we had to take them both. While we were gone, Kyle went to find Ashley, followed her out of her house, to a friends, waited until she left, until she was alone, then he murdered her."

"That's why you were at the construction site that day, she wasn't like the other women, she was going places with her life," Jess said, thinking back to when she and Don had seen Joseph at the construction site after Ashley had been killed.

"If we hadn't helped him, if we'd turned him in, that girl wouldn't have been killed," he stated. "It's our fault she's dead. I couldn't do it anymore after that, I couldn't just walk away after Kyle killed someone, I dunno, maybe I wanted to get caught, I just wanted it to stop."

* * *

Don found Jess sitting on the bench in the locker room, staring at the floor with a thoughtful expression. She looked tired and after talking with Mac he could understand why, Joseph's confession wouldn't exactly make good bedtime reading.

"He confessed then," he stated as he sat down next to her and Jess nodded, sitting up straight with a sigh.

"In horrific detail," she replied, he knew she and Mac had been in there for over an hour with Joseph after he'd started his confession and he was well aware that Mac had spared him many details when he'd spoken to him about it. He was about to ask her if she needed to talk but she cut him off. "Trust me; you do not want me to talk about it."

He smiled slightly. "You know I'm going to have to read the confession anyway right?"

"Then enjoy your last few hours of blissful ignorance," she said and sighed again. "I've seen some crap on this job Don, it goes with the territory but just thinking about everything these girls endured, I don't know, this one is just getting under my skin."

"It's gotten under everyone's skin, even Mac is looking a little off colour at the moment and I thought there was nothing that could faze him," Don told her earning a small smile in response which was quickly followed by a growling noise from Jess's stomach that made them both laugh. "You know, it's just hit me that neither of us has eaten anything today."

"Not my fault Lindsay and I were called away from the vending machine before we could decide what chocolate would make a good breakfast," Jess replied and Don rolled his eyes.

"I have to finish up with Craig Philips, the DNA just came back from the lab and he matches the hair found on Maria Thorpe, but do you want to go and grab something to eat afterwards?" he questioned and she shook her head.

"I'll head out and get us both something now, I'll be back by the time you're done with Craig," she told him as she stood up. He nodded as he stood up as well and after a quick glance around to make sure no one else was in there he kissed her.

"I'll see you in a bit," he said as he left the room and found Mac waiting for him. "You wanna join me while I throw DNA evidence at him?"

"That's why I'm here," Mac replied and the two of them walked into the interrogation room Craig was being kept in. Craig was still sat there looking smug, as though he'd won something and Don was going to enjoy wiping that look off his face

"We have DNA that links you to Maria Thorpe," he told Craig who shrugged.

"Doesn't mean I killed her," he replied.

"No, but Joseph confessed," he stated as he took his seat again, Mac sitting beside him.

"You're lying, he wouldn't betray us like that, family sticks together," Craig stated and Don saw Mac smirk slightly.

"Joseph said that too, your father used to tell you that right, while you were growing up," he stated. "So when Kyle called you and told you what he'd done to that girl he'd kidnapped you went straight over there to help him, you cleaned up, you got rid of the body, no one ever came looking, you thought you'd gotten away with it. Until Kyle tried to attack another girl, that's when you had to get your brothers involved, she got away, she hadn't identified him but Kyle wasn't going to stop, was he?"

Craig looked nervous now, "Joseph wouldn't..." he trailed off, not so sure of himself now.

"But he did, he told us how you tried the legitimate route first, anger management, family chats but it didn't work, so you found another way to help him. You picked his victims, people who wouldn't be missed, people who you saw as a drain on society. You kidnapped them; you brought them to him and let him do whatever he wanted to them for a couple of days before he killed them. Then you cleaned up, you dumped the bodies and you went looking for a new victim."

"That son of a bitch," Craig exclaimed, clearly talking about Joseph and not Kyle.

"You seemed to be committing the perfect crimes, we had no evidence, nothing to link us to you, until Ashley Hail," Don stated. "Kyle wasn't concerned with clean up and evidence, he wanted what he wanted and he took it without a thought to the mess he left behind. Then Joseph's conscience started catching up with him."

"We told him he couldn't have Ashley, if he'd just listed to us we wouldn't be here now, Joseph wouldn't have gone to the crime scenes, you never would have linked it back to us," Craig explained, still looking slightly smug. "He wanted her though, and nothing we could say or do would change his mind, once he picks a girl, nothing can stop him. I suppose I should offer you my condolences now."

Don narrowed his eyes, alarm bells ringing in his head. "What are you talking about?"

Craig smiled. "That pretty little cop, what was her name... A... Angell, that was it. He picked her out days ago, we told him no, she's a cop and that would draw too much attention, we were already suspects, we'd never get away with it. As I'm sure you can guess, it didn't really deter him."

Don was out of his chair and walking out the door, cell phone in hand before Craig had even finished talking, Mac on his heels as Craig laughed in the background.

Jess didn't answer her phone.

* * *

Jess stepped out of the car, she'd opted just to get her and Don a sandwich for now, hopefully tonight they'd be home and they could order in some real food then. She locked the car just as her cell phone started ringing. She grabbed it, seeing Don's name flashing on the screen but before she could answer it she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. She hit the floor, barely feeling the impact as everything went black.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

**Authors Note: Again guys, sorry for the wait but between university and NaNoWriMo I've had no life. Here's the final chapter, I hope it was worth the wait and huge thanks to; jessicaflack, saturn567, blackandblueangel, lily moonlight, CSI4lyfNCIS13, afrozenheart412 and Lays for their reviews on the previous chapter, love you guys. **

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Chapter 12

"She's still not answering her cell phone," Don declared as he walked in the room. Stella was on her phone, sitting on the edge of his desk with a worried look on her face.

"Adam traced Jess's cell phone to a sandwich shop a couple of blocks from here, Mac is in his way there," Stella told him and Don could vaguely hear the sound of a voice coming through the phone. He watched her anxiously but her face didn't change, didn't give any indication of what was going on. He impatiently called Jess's cell phone again, listening to it ring several times and dreading her voicemail picking up again.

"Come on Jess, pick up the phone," he muttered quietly but it continued to ring. He noticed the look Stella was giving him just as he got through to her voicemail again.

"Mac found her phone," she told him, "on the sidewalk."

He closed his eyes knowing what that meant and half wanting to call her phone again even knowing that it was in Mac's hand and not Jess's. Stella hung up the phone and put a hand on his shoulder.

"He's going to ask around, see if anyone saw anything, I have to head over there, are you going to be..." she began to ask him but he cut her off.

"I'll be okay when we have Jess back," he told her. "Until then, no, I'm not okay."

She nodded as she left and Don walked into the locker room, punching the first locker he got near to and cursing into the empty room. He shouldn't have let her go without him, but then how was he supposed to know that Kyle was after her? He was the one who had brought up food; she had left to get them both something to eat because he had mentioned not having eaten all day. He punched the lockeragain as he wound himself up with guilty thoughts and then took a breath, he needed to focus, he needed to find Jess.

He left the locker room and went to the captain's office, not even knocking on the door before he walked in.

"Detective Flack," the captain greeted in surprise but quickly realised something was wrong. "What's...?"

"Jess is missing," he told the captain, realising that in their haste to find Jess they hadn't told him what Craig had said.

"What do you mean?" the captain stood up, alert but understandable confused.

"Kyle Philips took her," he told the man, his impatience getting the better of him so he took another breath and started again. "Craig told us that Kyle wanted Jess, they'd told him no but it didn't deter him. We tried to call her, Adam traced her cell phone and Mac went to find her but her phone was just lying on the sidewalk. Mac and Stella are there now."

The captain was out of the room and barking orders to everyone in seconds, the room was suddenly alive with activity, the air thick with tension. Realisation struck Don and he wanted to hit himself in the head for not thinking of this sooner. He ran passed the captain and ignored the man's questions as he ran down the corridor to the interrogation room they were keeping Joseph in.

"Your brother has taken Detective Angell," Don announced as he rushed into the room, not even closing the door behind him.

"What?" Joseph asked.

"Where would he take her, where is he?" Don shouted as he heard people run into the room behind him, stopping at the doorway.

"I don't know," Joseph replied fearfully.

"Then you better start thinking..." Don yelled, getting into Joseph's face before a hand on his shoulder pulled him back slightly, a voice warning him off, some part of him registering that it was Danny but the rest of him not paying enough attention to care.

Joseph stuttered for a moment. "He'd go somewhere he feels safe, I... I don't, our father, he and his wife have a house, they're out of town, maybe he would go there, yeah he would, he'd feel safe there and it's not far from here."

"You better hope you're right," Don told him, his voice low and threatening. Joseph visibly paled, shrinking back into his chair, trying to make himself as small as possible.

"Address?" Danny questioned as he stepped forward and the words were barely out of Joseph's mouth before Don was walking out of the room.

* * *

It seemed that no one had seen anything and Stella had to marvel at how a woman could be taken right off the street in broad daylight and no one saw a thing, or if they had, didn't do or say anything about it. There was nothing in the area to indicate where Kyle might have taken Jess, not that she really expected there to be, she'd had to check though. Mac was still speaking to one of the customers at the sandwich shop but she could tell by the look on his face that he hadn't gotten anything useful. Stella walked outside, taking a deep breath and looking at the spot on the ground where Mac told her Jess's cell phone had been, probably the last place she had been standing.

The hand on her shoulder made her jump and she turned to Mac who held up his hands, his face apologetic. "We've got nothing here."

"I've called Adam, he's working on CCTV footage now," she told him and he nodded his head. "She has to be okay Mac," she continued, not knowing why she needed to tell him that, he knew that as well as she did. "She has to be okay, not to mention what this would do to Don."

"I know," he replied. "She's tough."

She sighed just as her cell phone started ringing and she answered it quickly. She was greeted by the sound of sirens on the other end of the line, Danny shouting to be heard over it.

"Joseph gave us an address, their father's house, apparently they're out of town, we're on our, Jeez Flack, watch out, we're on our way there now," Danny told her and she relayed the information to Mac, the two of them jumping into his car and leaving hers where it was, she could pick it up later.

* * *

Jess woke up with a headache and it took a moment for her eyes to focus on her surroundings and another moment for her mind to realise something was wrong. She moved to sit up only for something around her hands to stop her, a quick look to either side of her head and she realised she was tied to a bed. There was a few seconds where she panicked, trying to pull her hands free and scream, only to then realise she had been gagged and any noise she tried to make was muffled and quiet.

She stopped herself, taking a deep breath, as much as she could while gagged, and then did a quick mental run down of what she remembered. Joseph's confession, talking to Don, going to get something to eat and then... something hit her... and then nothing. She was a smart woman, and a smart cop, it didn't take much to figure out what had happened.

How long had she been gone? If it was more than a couple of hours then Don would already have noticed, he would have called her and when she didn't answer, he'd start to worry, even if they hadn't sent out the search party yet, Don would at least be worried. She wanted to panic some more but she took another breath and looked at her hand again; it was tied to the bed by a blue tie. The knot was tight, but maybe she could get it loose, maybe she could get her hand free. Her other hand was tied by another tie, this was a red and green striped one, the blue one was looser.

She wriggled her hand, trying to create some slack, trying to see how much she could manoeuvre it. She heard a bang, it sounded like it came from below her, so maybe she was on a second floor, or there was a basement. She looked at the door, listening for any further sound but not hearing it and she mentally calmed herself down and continued to work on the tie. She was getting fabric burns from it but she thought she might be getting somewhere when she heard footsteps outside the door. She turned her head to look at it, her heart beating faster and breaths coming quicker.

The door handle turned and the door opened, she wasn't surprised to see Kyle walk through it but that didn't make her any less terrified as he closed the door behind him. She could feel herself panicking, she couldn't panic, she had to stop panicking; she couldn't.

"Look who's finally awake," he said, a smile appearing on his face. "I was starting to think I'd have to have my fun with you unconscious."

He walked toward her and she panicked a little more, her short and fast breaths struggling to make it passed the gag as he sat next to her on the bed. She flinched away from his hand as he touched her face, ran his fingers down her cheek and neck, across her collar bone. She tried to move away from him but he pulled her back, his hand running down her side and she started to struggle, pulling at the ties that were keeping her in place.

She felt her hand come loose, the tie slacken enough for her to pull her hand free. It was just one hand but it gave her back enough of her calm back to punch him in the face. It lacked the power she would usually put into a punch and he turned angry eyes back to her, his hands going for her throat. She brought her knee up and caught him in the side, knocking him off balance long enough to get her foot into position to kick him. He fell off the bed and hit the floor and she took the opportunity to swing her legs off the bed. One of her hands was still bound, the knot was tight and she tried to get it loose but there was no ways she had the time. Kyle was already off the floor and he grabbed her hair, swearing at her as he pulled her head back.

* * *

Kyle Philips car was parked in the driveway and the house was surrounded. The only thing that had stopped Don from marching straight in there was the hand Danny had wrapped around his arm to keep him in place long enough for everyone to get in position. Mac and Stella had just arrived and Don was just waiting on the team at the back of the house to radio that they were in position. Jess was here, she was on the other side of the door he was standing right next to, he just wanted to go in and find her. His training and every bit of sense it had instilled in him told that it would only put Jess in more danger if he did.

The go ahead finally came through from the team at the back and Danny stepped forward, trying the door handle and Don was only slightly surprised that it wasn't locked. Kyle Philips really didn't give much thought to getting caught; they would have had him at the first girl if it hadn't been for his brothers.

They filed into the house quietly, letting the team at the back know to wait where they were, if they could get in unnoticed this would go a lot better. They cleared the living room and the kitchen easily and a couple of officers unlocked the back door while Don and Danny headed upstairs with Mac and Stella. It wasn't until he got to the top of the stairs that he heard a man's voice swearing and he followed it quickly to a closed door. He stood at one side, Mac at the other and Danny and Stella behind them. He gave Mac a nod and opened the door.

Jess was crouched down at the side of the bed, one hand tied to the metal railings of the headboard. Kyle Philips was picking himself up from the floor and he lunged at her, grabbing her hair and pulling her head back sharply. Don ran over and grabbed him, throwing him back onto the floor at Mac and Danny's feet. He made sure they had him before turning back to Jess who was still crouching by the side of the bed.

"Jess," he said and reached out to touch her but she flinched at the contact. "It's alright, it's me."

She nodded, she looked terrified, ready to cry and if Mac and Danny weren't shoving a shouting protesting Kyle out of the room already he might have done something he'd regret later. He untied her hand from the bed and the second she was free she got up and walked out of the room, not saying a word.

He followed her out of the room and down the stairs; she was wasting no time in getting out of the house. She walked out the front door and around the side of the building until she was out of sight of the officers and detectives that had swarmed the building.

"Jess," he said as he caught up with her and she wordlessly turned to him and buried herself in his chest. He could feel her shaking as he wrapped his arms around her. He held her tightly, whispering a few reassuring words but mostly just holding her. He didn't know how long they were stood there for before Stella came around the corner, her eyes meeting Don's for a moment before she nodded her head and walked away again.

"I want to leave Don, I want to go, now," she said and he stepped back from her.

"Alright," he said and led her to his car; he put her in the passenger seat and then went to tell Mac they were leaving before taking her to the station. She seemed slightly better once they'd put some distance between them and the house.

Jess went straight to the locker room when they arrived and immediately pulled out her change of clothes, announcing that she was burning the clothes that she was wearing as soon as she'd showered. Don left her to shower alone, letting her have some time alone while he went to speak to the captain who told him that Kyle was in one of the interrogation rooms. Don wanted to go in there, he wanted to make the man pay for what he'd done to Jess but the captain put a hand on his shoulder and told him to go and see Jess, she was his priority now.

He got back to the locker room in time to see Jess putting her jacket on, her wet hair tied back. "Now I feel a little better," she stated when she spotted him.

"How about I just take you home," he stated but she shook her head.

"I have to give my statement," she told him.

"It can wait," he replied as he watched her close her locker and shake her head again.

"No, I want to do it now, I want it over with," she said taking a deep breath and closing her eyes for a moment. He walked over to her and put his arms around her. "Then I want you to take me home."

"Okay," he said as he let go of her. "Are you alright?"

"Right at this moment, no," she replied. "But I will be when Kyle Philips and his sick brothers are on their way to a very long stay in jail."

* * *

It was later than they had been expecting when they got to Don's apartment and Jess immediately went into the bedroom to change while Don searched his kitchen for the takeout menu to Jess's favourite pizza place. He ordered some pizzas, Jess coming out of the bedroom halfway through the phone call dressed in sweat pants and one of his hoodies. She settled down on the coach and Don finished ordering their food before going to sit next to her, putting the TV on as he did so.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" he asked as she settled herself back against his chest and he put his arms around her.

She shrugged and he flicked through the channels until he found what looked like a romantic comedy and left that on. He didn't really care what was on the TV and he knew she didn't either, she just wanted to sit there with him and he was fine with that. He ran the fingers of one hand up and down her arm, keeping his other arm wrapped around her as they sat their quietly. She laid her head back on his chest and he could tell she was falling asleep, he could tell the exact moment that she actually fell to sleep and he continued to sit the quietly, just glad that they were both there.

Kyle Philips had confessed to the whole thing, Don had briefly slipped into the observation room while Jess had been giving her statement and Mac and Danny had been questioning Kyle. Stella had given him a wary look when he'd walked in but he'd just looked through the window silently and she hadn't pushed the matter.

There had been more than enough evidence against Kyle to convict him, a full confession from Joseph, a confession from Craig, the DNA evidence and the statement of a whole bunch of cops for what he'd done to Jess. The man had known he was going down and he didn't even bother to deny anything. He'd happily stated that he'd killed those women, he'd eagerly told them about Ashley Williams and then he'd moved onto Jess. Stella had glanced at him several more times as he'd talked about seeing her working the case, how he'd wanted her, followed her and how he'd taken her from the middle of the street. He talked about what he would have done to her and then swore he would get his chance; that he would still get to have her.

One of the other detectives had stuck her head into the observation room then to tell him that Jess had finished giving her statement a while ago and he should probably go and take her home. He'd given Kyle one last hateful glance before going to find Jess.

There was a knock at the door and Don glanced down at Jess, hating the thought of waking her but knowing that she'd barely eaten all day. He manoeuvred her off him, somehow managing not to wake her and went to pay for the pizza. He left them on the coffee table while he woke Jess, she jumped away, sitting up quickly but it didn't take her long to realise she was in his apartment and she was safe. They ate the pizza and watched the end of the movie, neither knowing what was actually going on, before they went to bed. Don got changed and Jess gave his tie a strange look as he took it off and she took it from him, walking out of the room with and coming back without it.

She got into bed and he climbed in next to her, she settled her head against his chest again and he wrapped his arms around her.

"Can you not wear the blue tie for a while?" she questioned and he realised why she had take it out of the room. One the ties on the bed in Kyle's fathers house had been blue.

"How about I just throw it out?" he replied and she shook her head.

"No, it's one of your only nice ties," she stated and he smiled slightly. "Just don't wear it for a while."

"Okay," he replied and kissed the top of her head. She fell back to sleep again within minutes but despite his exhaustion Don laid there staring at the ceiling, his mind conjuring up other ways this day could have ended. He shook those thoughts off, she was here, she was relatively unhurt and in time she would be back to her usual self. He tightened his arms around her, breathing her in and finally fell asleep.

END

**Authors Note: Thank you so much to those of you who have stuck with me on this, it's been a bumpy ride but we've finally gotten here. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and I hope you all enjoyed the story.**


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